INTERESTING REAL ESTATE STUFF & ARTICLES

Name: Heather Chontos, Kodie (12) and Zana (3), and dog Marvin
Location: Clinton Hill — Brooklyn, New York
Size: 1000 square feet
Years lived in: 3 years — rent

If this post title seems to have a lot of adjectives to describe the home, we felt it only fitting consider the creative woman renting this space happens to wear a lot of hats herself. Heather Chontos is an artist, furniture designer, stylist, illustrator, mom, business owner and more, and she filled the Brooklyn loft she shares with her two daughters full of fun creations, thoughtful finds and an eclectic mix of styles.

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The living room: It's the room we showcase for visitors, the room that reflects our changing tastes and our changing lifestyles. It's also the room that so often gets stuck and can easily feel dated and cluttered. While swapping out a couch is not something most of us can do regularly, here are seven smaller updates that can help freshen up the look and feel of your living room.
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The other day I shared the evolution of my home office, from dining room to traditional office to lounge office. That was the outer change. But there was an inner transformation that was less apparent.
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Are you loving the new bright, fiery Pantone 'it' color of the year but are not ready to commit an entire wall or major piece of furniture to the sexy 'tangerine tango'?
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Photo: Antoine Predock Architect

So often when hunting for high-end properties in ski country, we run into the same tired log cabin aesthetic, with Native American-inspired prints, heavy leather furniture, mounted moose heads, and other Western clichés. Luckily, there are some owners and designers willing to brave a chilly reception from the neighbors in pursuit of something more unique. No one has turned the log home on its head more than New Mexico-based AD100 architect Antoine Predock. The Log Jam House was built in Colorado for a couple of New Yorkers, one of whom specializes in disequilibrium theory at Columbia Law School. He should feel right at home in the house, which has logs spearing through the rear facade, curved walls, and a curious arrangement of windows. The three-bedroom modern cabin's otherwise sleek interiors were featured in the January 2008 issue of Architectural Digest.

Photo: Pieter Estersohn/Architectural Digest

↑ Arch Digest also profiled this far more conventional log home, this time in Aspen, Colo., renovated to a modern taste by Atelier AM. The firm benefited from the architect's choice of spruce wood, which lend the place a much lighter feel than the usual log mansion, but used a contemporary Californian eye to really transform the space. The living room (above) features a blackened steel fireplace, contemporary art, and sleek (but cushy) furnishings.


Photo: Bjorn Wallander/Dwell

↑ For something a little more attainable, Dwell chimes in with this modern build in Winter Park, Colo. Constrained by the size of the lot and wanting to keep parts of the existing ranch house, the owner commissioned architect Michael P. Johnson, who designed a glassy cantilever over the driveway to house the living and dining room. According to the owner, it "feels like a treehouse," despite disregarding a local zoning board suggestion to add some "log accents."


Photo: Pieter Estersohn/Elle Decor

↑ Not that log accents are all bad, as this Montana mansion can attest. Designed by southern designer Ray Booth, the interiors of this Yellowstone Club spread were featured in Elle Decor, most likely for their cosmopolitan feel with hints at the mountain zone classics. The living room uses stacked stone for the fireplace surround and raw wood beams on the ceiling, but the wood is lighter and the stone is joined by clean-lined beige furniture.


Photo: David O. Marlow/Selldorf Architects

↑ Building a five-story mini-skyscraper in the middle of the Colorado wilderness might only have been the brainchild of a New Yorker and Manhattan-based starchitect Annabelle Selldorf is the one responsible. This high-floor bedroom might not be the most child-friendly, but the wire barrier provides unencumbered views, as does the sheer quantity of glass.

· Log Jam House [Antoine Predock Architect]
· A Not So Log Cabin [Arch Digest]
· A Contemporary Colorado Lodge [Arch Digest]
· Ski Lift [Dwell]
· High & Mighty [Elle Decor]
· Pika House [Selldorf Architects]

You'd never guess that the charming street façade of this 1880's bungalow in Adelaide, Australia conceals a bright and airy modern home. But it does. In fact, looking at it, you might imagine that the rooms inside are small, dim and oddly positioned. Which they were. And for several years, homeowners Kylie Brammy and George Kyprianou lived with it that way...
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BoConcept's new Ottawa Collection, designed by Karim Rashid. Photo via Contemporist

WORLDWIDE—New from BoConcept is the Ottawa dining room collection, which was designed by Karim Rashid. [Contemporist]

NYC—Bravo's Million Dollar Listing New York, a spinoff of the network's original series profiling high-rolling agents and brokers in L.A., will kick off March 7. [Curbed NY]

WORLDWIDE—House Beautiful welcomes two new contributing editors: Blair Voltz Clarke, a private art dealer, and Rebecca de Ravenel, a designer and stylist. [Editor at Large]

With over 300 exhibitors,Toronto's large Interior Design Show IDS12 runs this weekend. Toronto has the fastest growing condo market in the world and IDS12 focuses on what new condo dwellers need for their homes.
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It was the everyday slices of life that drew me into the Occupy Movement. People were living there. To a food writer, that triggers another thought: they are cooking and eating there, too. So I began to document these protest picnics, notebook and iPhone in hand.

• The Food of the Occupy Movement
  The Kitchn
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Polish designer Pani Jurek took inspiration from the world of science when she designed the Maria S.C. chandelier lamp from a set of test tubes. The piece is named and designed as a nod to innovator, scientist, educator and academic Maria Sklodowska-Curie, who was the first person to be twice awarded the Nobel Prize, first in 1903 and then again in 1911.

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