Apartment City

Name: Cynthia, her husband Graham, their three children Ben, Ruby Mae and Theo, and black lab George Location: Keene, Ontario, Canada The basics: 7 years, owned — 2,400 square feet Cynthia and her family can escape to their historic farmhouse slash flower farm for a quick weekend getaway . Having preserved and updated many a historic property , Cynthia and her husband turned their eyes towards this house and its large parcel of land. Keeping things simple and chic, the home blends old and new to great effect. Tell us a little (or a lot) about your home and the people who live there: Graham and my story started as an office romance more than twenty years ago - a marriage, three children, numerous pets, successful marketing careers , and many houses later, we are still excited to work together every day. We share a passion for growing flowers and renovating character homes . Together we have saved some remarkable spaces including a Victorian row house , a Tudor cottage, a turn-of...

Legendary artist Banksy looks to have 'hit back' at thieves who stripped one of his artworks from a city centre street in the best possible way. The mystery painter seems to have created a mural in Liverpool after one of his original paintings was stripped from close to the newly painted Liver Bird Wings . It includes a monkey alongside the statement "you can rob a bank and get away with 10 grand and serve 8 years or you can rob a Banksy and get away with a 100 grand and serve Caviar". The painting appears to be Banksey's style as speculation mounts as to who has created the piece - and whether it could have been done by the world famous street artist himself. The new mural has appeared in Liverpool city centre (Image: Liverpool Echo WS ) The mural appears to be in Banksy's style (Image: Liverpool Echo WS ) Read More The message on the mural could be seen as a nod to the latest news that two works by Banksy - the Rat and the Love Plane - that were take...

Londoners are increasingly turning to the river to make commuting a great deal less stressful. As more developments spring up along the Thames and the river taxi route extends east and west along its banks, commuting by boat is becoming a serious option for many residents… Words: Fiona Brandhorst London’s newest river stop at Battersea Power Station Pier will be providing peak river services every 20 minutes to Blackfriars in 15 minutes and an express route to Canary Wharf for the thousands of new residents. Prices start from £1.33m for a two bedroom apartment in Prospect Place and Battersea Roof Gardens . ‘While many Londoners pile on to a hot, stuffy tube or wrestle with each other for a space on the bus, there are a growing number who take the Thames Clipper to work,’ comments Giles Barrett , Knight Frank Partner , Riverside. ‘As one client said he can even enjoy a G&T on his way home in the evenings.’ A growing number of people are taking the Thames Clipper to work. As ...

On any summer weekend, Venice Beach is the ultimate urban beach carnival : exhilarating, loud, funky and diverse. No wonder Ocean Front Walk is one of the state’s premier attractions: It’s amazing entertainment and it’s 100% free. But unlike other tourist spots — say Disneyland or Universal CityWalk — Venice is still primarily a residential neighborhood . Because of that, Venice has become an epicenter of Los Angeles’ struggle over short-term rentals, what you might call the Airbnb Problem. To get a sense of it, I took what some local housing activists have dubbed a “Lost Housing” tour of Venice on Saturday afternoon. Over the course of four hours, I visited half a dozen buildings on or very close to the Boardwalk that have been converted, without permits, from long- term rental apartments to short-term rentals, or — yes — let’s call them what they really are: hotels. If you are wondering why the rental housing market in a place like Venice Beach is so tight, look no further than y...

Last month, we reported on how much the apartments in some of your favorite movies —  When Harry Met Sally , Pretty Woman, Sleepless In Seattle — would rent for in today's market. (Yes, Carrie and Mr. Big's pre-war penthouse on Fifth Avenue is as exorbitantly expensive as it looked in the Sex and the City films.) Recently, ForRent.com, the same real estate website that ran the stats on movie homes, compiled the same type of analysis for the most popular Netflix Original series . From Kimmy Schmidt and Titus Andromedon's familiarly seedy New York basement to the D.C. townhouse in House of Cards , to the dilapidated mansion on Arrested Development , see how much Netflix' most-watched homes actually cost, ahead. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt : $1,300 While the apartment costs $475 a month on the show, in the current market the median rental price is about $1,300 a month, or $650 for each roommate. Kimmy's garden-level (a nice way of saying "basement, likely roach...

Thinking of taking in paying guests? Three veteran Vancouver hosts share tricks of the trade Emily Plommer knew from her own experience staying at Airbnbs that it was frustrating to rent an apartment with a full kitchen and discover that there wasn’t so much as a salt shaker or bottle of cooking oil in the cupboards. So when Plommer, an avid traveller and then 26-year-old women’s studies grad, decided to make a living through hosting two years ago, she made sure the rental suite in her house in Vancouver’s Strathcona neighbourhood was well provisioned. Pots and pans and utensils. Basic cooking supplies , like oil and some spices. Milk and cereal. Coffee beans. Fresh fruit. Eggs. Then she found that she was making a lot of banana bread with the leftover, disintegrating fruit or eating the cereal herself. “It was funny how people would book a place like this and then eat nothing at home,” Plommer says. “In the end, I just asked, ‘Will you be eating breakfast here?’ before leaving things...

Apartment department: Officials with ceremonial scissors gathered Monday to cut the ribbon at the 252- unit Costa Mariposa apartment complex in Texas City. The ceremony marked the official opening of the 7555 Medical Center Drive complex developed by San Antonio-based The NRP Group. The complex is the first affordable multifamily development completed in the county since Hurricane Ike struck two years ago. Because it targets low- and moderate- income people Costa Mariposa was awarded post- Ike stimulus funds from the Tax Credit Assistance Program administered by the Texas Department of Housing & Community Affairs . The department issued $14 million in tax exempt bonds in addition to $8.5 million in tax credits to the developers. The department also awarded the project $3 million from a federal program designed to expand the supply of decent affordable housing for moderate- to low- income families and individuals. Costa Mariposa received another $2.5 million from the T...

NYC Living New York City architecture : You’ll see some sweet pilasters. So you’re trying to choose between one new apartment and another, and you’re telling your roommate or significant other that you like apartment A — in part because of that cool building it’s in. You know, that stately old building with all the, the … things on it. And your roommate says, uh-huh, yes, the things, I love those things, too. Let’s live in the place with the things. Those things have names. Wouldn’t it be fun to know them? It would! So here’s a quick guide to New York architecture — those things on buildings you always wanted to refer to but didn’t know the names of, plus some residential building styles you’re likely to run across in NYC. Because “things” are pretty, but names are useful. Elements of New York City Architecture Here’s a SoHo building with a serious cornice. That big, decorative beam at the very top of a building or wall is a cornice … Note the decorative lintels above some windows on...

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption What has been achieved in 30 years of redevelopment in Cardiff Bay? Future development of Cardiff Bay needs a more coordinated approach to ensure its success, the man behind its reinvention 30 years ago has said. Lord Crickhowell has hailed the overall regeneration of the former derelict docklands as a major success. But he is fiercely opposed to the latest plans to redevelop land for flats, including a 24-story building. Three decades after he sparked plans for one of the biggest overhauls the city has seen, what has been achieved? Image caption Cardiff Bay waterfront in 1977 - derelict before regeneration Once the epicentre of Wales' booming coal and export industries, by the 1980s, Cardiff Bay had become an abandoned wasteland of derelict docks and mudflats. A victim of a dramatic fall in trade following World War Two and competition from other ports saw its decline and a plan was put in place to bring it back to lif...