Margarida's weekend home in Portugal

I am in awe of this weekend home submitted by a reader named Margarida. Here is a bit of info she included: Its located 13 kms from the little village monsaraz & alqueva big lake in the region of alentejo (Portugal). Its our new weekend and holiday family house but its concept was done to be rentable by other families so we are building the new site for it. The Architecture project was done by João favila Menezes. He is very talented and conceptual artist. The interior decoration was done by myself and there is still a lot to do :) it accommodates 12 people and it took us 3 years to finish this project and the idea was to have a piece of modern land that would allow us to go free on modernity but respecting the landscape and the traditions of alentejo architecture. the next step on this family investment is the building of a garden, its a project made by an amazing award winning architecture Teresa Barão. It is absolutely beautiful in its surroundings, and perfection in its simplicity. WOW!

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Irving's home

Perched above the streets of New York is the home of Irving Diaz-Burg. "The apartment is in a new construction, utilitarian high-rise building by Toll Brothers' located at 110 Third Avenue, with floor to ceiling windows and amounts to a well-considered 850 square feet," writes Irving who works in  architecture as a Project Coordinator and Marketing Manager. It's not hard to see how Irving has honed his fabulous sense of style. "I have been working in high-end architecture and interiors for a number of years.  I was an art history major with a practical background ranging from furniture specification, to whole event planning to assisting project managers on all levels of organization and project actualization.  This has been a great outlet for my creativity, organizational and social skills ..." What a wonderful contemporary apartment Irving! Super stylish living in the Big Apple. And for all the readers who will want to know what and where and how to get their hands on various pieces in the pictures you'll find a comprehensive resource list here. You wouldn't expect anything else from a Project Coordinator ;)

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Reader's home - Elisabeth's lake house

This little blog apparently supplied Elisabeth with inspiration to come up with this absolutely incredible lake house. WOWZERS. I can't help but feel like a proud mother because this weekend getaway is a DREAM. I bow down to her for coming up with that 'sub' kitchen - I have plans for something similar in my next house and now I'm totally sold on the idea. (FYI: Her architect was Jay Corder)

the house is right outside of austin, tx on the pedernales river. we live in houston and drive there as many weekends as possible to relax, have family time and let our kids wakeboard on our boat.
the house is 3000 sq ft. with four bedrooms, 3 1/2 baths. there are a lot of great aspects about the house. the bunk room is cool because it was built to be an indoor/outdoor room for the kids - bunks inside with huge glass sliding doors that open out onto the 'outdoor' part of the room - a screened sleeping porch. we also have another interesting interior design aspect which is what we call our 'sub' kitchen. we have 2 main kitchen counters out in the main living space and then the sub kitchen is a small room adjacent to the kitchen that houses the refrigerator, shelf storage, an extra dishwasher and counter appliances and can be closed off with giant barn doors to hide all of that or to hide dishes after a dinner so the party can go on without a mess.
we love the simplicity of the house. it is incredibly functional and also provides such a relaxing respite for our family.

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Reader's home - an architect's pad in Argentina

Maria and Santiago are architects from Buenos Aires, Argentina who wanted to share their apartment with our readers. Judging by the stacks of speakers they are clearly music (or maybe movie) buffs, and they appreciate classic mid-century furniture. Some large, graphic artwork (ie. Warhol) could really step this up a notch. 

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Javier's holiday home update

Back in July of 2011 I blogged the Spanish holiday home of interior designer and artist Javier Requejo. Javier emailed the other day to let us know his home was recently featured in Elle Decor España. The stellar photos and styling knock this already fabulous home out of the ballpark. I just had to share this version with you all since the first round was such a hit, and it's pretty neat to be able to see what it takes to make a home magazine-worthy. (P.S. Javier now has a blog).

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