Displaying posts labeled "Outdoors"

Fancy getting away from the hustle and bustle? The idea of a guest house, a bed and breakfast more appealing than an impersonal hotel room? A little bit of paradise in the middle of the Italian countryside? Oh yes please! Toss aside your big city cares and settle into this Upper Tiber Valley barn conversion. It’s part of the owners’ home. Mid century classics and rural Italy. Sounds like a great marriage. Add a private swimming pool and five hectares of land to explore, fig trees to pluck fruit from, a bocce court in the woods. What more could you want for an escape to the country? Villa Metato Umbria, Italy via Welcome Beyond.

Oh the view! The view! It takes my breath away. A simple, stylish holiday destination housed in a 300 year old Spycher high above Lake Lucern in Switzerland. “Simple and stylish” doesn’t really describe it does it? Spectacular and sensitive. A bygone era and a very special place. A spirit. A genius loci. It makes your heart ache with its beauty and your spirit soar. Im Spycher is truly as close to heaven as you can get.

Dear Real Estate Agent,

I am writing to bring to your attention a short falling in your internet advertising I feel you may wish to address. Although I know that the pictures you upload to the real estate websites you use are only meant as a teaser, something to compel me to ring you, give you all my personal details, sell my soul to you and as well of those of my family just so I can trapped alone with you at a house viewing and under your hypnotic spell sign a contract there and then at full asking price, I wonder if just a few more pictures at the very beginning is too much to ask for. (Particularly for this lovely Darlinghurst, Sydney home.) I promise I will still be compelled to ring and give you my heart and soul. I promise I am not just real estate stalking. Pinky swear I promise.

Kind regards,

Jo

I am in panic mode now – my trip is less than a week away and I have hardly crossed off any items on my TO DO list. AH WELL. As a result I did not have time to travel around blogland looking for my favourite photos of the week to post today. Rather, I had to spend some time digging through my photo stash looking for photos of the exterior of homes because my architect emailed the other day wanting to know what we were thinking of (we’re replacing the ugly-ass siding on the existing house too so it will be a BIG job with a hefty price tag). I have no freaking clue what to tell him – all I know is because it’s pretty much 2 flat 2-story rectangles perhaps some of the windows could protrude a bit and at least 2 different materials could provide some visual interest. I have never had the opportunity to deal with the exterior of a home before so I figured we could just send him some photos of inspiration and he could figure something out for now. I narrowed it down to the photos below. If anyone has suggestions please feel free to leave them in the comments (plans we have so far for the new house are here).

P.S. HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!!

Hillery Priest

Charles & Hudson

Hus & Hem

Buttrick Wong

Dwell

Carl Dahlstedt

Elle Decor

Hartslane

Elle Decor Italy

environa studio

Johnston Architects

Live/work, green, sustainable, re-use, recycle, style, substance and fun! Chicago architects Wilkinson Blender wanted to save energy and materials with clever design and scrupulous reuse of materials from the original tavern building in this remodel. They even installed wind turbines on the roof to augment photo-voltaic cells. The roof top garden is perfect for entertaining that is if you can drag your friends away from the games room or the togo sofas. It’s smart, it’s stylish, it’s green and it’s sexy.