| Girls have their own sweet little home
When I was little I decked out my dollhouse with itty-bitty cabbage-rose wallpaper, white eyelet curtains and bedspreads fashioned from dainty antique handkerchiefs. I owned a backyard playhouse, too, a teeny metal hut with a cheerily painted suburban exterior that included faux windows, shutters and window boxes. But I dreamed of a real playhouse with quirky furniture, art and plenty of my decorating color of choice: pink. Donna Christian gave that gift to her daughters. The Davis Islands mother of three girls - Allie, 7, Gabby, 3, and Jessie, 2 -- wanted to spiff up the interior of their playhouse and turn it into the kind of place where imagination and girl power rule. "Before, it was just a wooden playhouse and I thought it would be nice to make it interesting, to make it much more like a real house," Christian recalls.
SF POLICE RECOVER $1 MILLION PAINTING, VALUABLES
San Francisco police say a 42-year-old man has confessed to masterminding the holiday heist of millions of dollars of artwork and antiques from a Presidio Heights home. Burglary Inspector Denise Fabbri said that James Reem, a San Francisco man, confessed last week to gathering a group of thieves who were able to steal several valuable antiques, including a book of etchings, coins, furniture and a John Singer Sargent portrait of a gray-haired woman valued at over $1 million. The painting, along with a smaller portrait and two antique chairs are now being stored safely in the Hall of Justice where burglary detectives continue their investigation. According to Fabbri, a scheme to burglarize the Jackson Street home of Robert Kendrick began in September when Reem snuck into the mansion and stole jewels and other small items.
Looking for county's best barbecue spot
Warning: What Michelle Jones has to say contains material that may be disturbing to some Texans. We dont have good barbecue, Jones said of her Cape Cod, Mass., hometown. Our brisket is corned. (Thats pronounced cawned for those unfamiliar with a New England accent.)OK. Everyone shake it off. This story has a happy ending. Jones has Texas in-laws. And fortunately those in-laws have a home on the island, where Jones and husband Ronald were spending a leisurely lunch hour recently at Leons Worlds Finest In & Out B-B-Q House, 5427 Broadway.We came all the way from Cape Cod to eat at Leons, said Jones, who was escorted by in-law Linda McCourt.Loving sliced brisket is easy. But choosing the best barbecue joint in Galveston County isnt. If theres any consensus to be found, its about the secret to good barbecue.Slow cooking and slow smoking, said League City resident Richard Rogers.Island resident Jeff Reeves concurs.You can have the best sauce in the world, but if the meat is dry and tough, then its terrible, Reeves said.
Browsers find treasures at antiques show
NORMAL -- Becky Ansher loves looking at antiques, and this weekend's Top of the Class Antiques Show & Sale didn't disappoint her.“It's fabulous," said Ansher of Normal. “I love it."She said the show, at the Brown Ballroom at Illinois State University Bone Student Center, offered a lot more variety than similar shows and antique malls. She saw an antique gun muzzle loader and Fostoria glass pieces she hadn't seen before.Gretchen Fagin of Bloomington also was impressed.“It's beautiful; very well done," said Fagin, who recently moved with her husband from Pennsylvania to Bloomington. “But the prices are sticker shock in comparison to the East Coast."Fagin was looking for a small wooden table. She found plenty, but didn't purchase any.Doug Jennings, associate director of the ISU School of Communications and coordinator of the show, said it attracted 30 vendors this year.“We're real happy," he said, despite the fact that the total was down from the previous two years.
Design guru picks antiques of future
Antiques of the future. It's an oxymoron but a deliberate one, devised by architect-designer Lisa Roberts. Roberts looks at the best-designed furniture and furnishings of our time and picks those she thinks will be coveted when they're out of production everything from tea kettles to toilet brushes. Now she has written "Antiques of the Future" (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, $29.95), the first in a series of books aimed at teaching others how to spot future antiques. They "have to be icons, have to break the mold, have to stand the test of time and be recognized as such by experts," Roberts says. She considers current products, giving thumbs up or down. .
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