Revisiting some of HGTV’s Dream Homes from years past: Completely Coastal.

Upside-Down House built in Germany (just don’t use the toilet): Daily Mail.

George Stephanopoulos & Ali Wentworth sell $6.3m Georgian mansion: Huffington Post.

Sarah’s beach house is featured in Real Living magazine: A Beach Cottage.

A Tudor beauty in Atlanta (I want to go to there): Things That Inspire.

A cottage kitchen gets a makeover: CasaSugar.

How to build a chicken coop with style: Heather Bullard.

“Hangover” star Bradley Cooper buys Venice loft: Celebrity Digs HQ.

One of my favorite former bloggers is coming back (hooray!):  The Painted House.

Layla’s mantel is decorated for spring: The Lettered Cottage.

Modern living in a 1927 Spanish Colonial: Lookiloos.

Joni, Linda, and Megan discuss the issue of blog envy (and have a few things to say about me): The Skirted Roundtable.

Lookiloos, A Beach Cottage, Heather Bullard, and Completely Coastal are fabulous blogs and sponsors of mine. Thanks for visiting them!

When I spotted this 1885 Victorian in the Connecticut real estate listings, it stopped me in my tracks. Wow. This Greenwich property has over 8,000 square feet and sits on a beautifully landscaped lawn “with water views.” The owners renovated it in 2000, and I’d love to see what it looked like before, when all of the woodwork was probably dark.

There’s definitely a light, beachy vibe here–something you don’t expect from an old Victorian.

The dining room light fixture looks a lot like the one in Sarah Jessica Parker’s Hamptons house, doesn’t it?

I think the curved wall in the kitchen with all of the big windows overlooking the water is lovely:

What do you think–do you like this updated Victorian? I’d love to see some more color on the exterior to make some of the details stand out.

It’s on the market for $14.5 million. There are 6 bedrooms, 6 baths, and 3 fireplaces in the house. More photos and information in the listing. Any takers?

Love Victorian houses? Check out a couple of fabulous ones from the movies: Meet Me in St. Louis and Practical Magic.

Tweet! A two-tiered aluminum server: My Sparrow.

Danish Modern Elongated Bowl: Century Finds.

Vintage blue Atlas canning jars: Solstice Home.

Quail eggs for Easter displays: Heather Bullard.

Maya’s handspun yarn makes me want to knit something: Springtree Road.

Sweet spiral-bound photo book for Easter pics: Color Inc.

This yellow house reminds me of the “new farmhouse” style I loved in the movie Housesitter. I’ll take one on a lake for the weekends, please: The Plan Collection.

Most of these are sponsors of my blog. Thanks for visiting them!

Areader named Lisa wrote me about an old house she found in Pittsburg, Kansas, that she’d like to “save.” It’s in a great historic neighborhood where the houses around it are selling for much more. This one is on the market for only $149,900 and has a lot of things going for it: over 3,000 square feet of living space, to start with, including 4 bedrooms and 2 1/2 baths. Marble in the entry. Hardwood floors under the carpet. Two fireplaces. A big yard.

However, it also has a lot of strikes against it. Outdated decor (an understatement). Cracks in the walls. What appears to be years of neglect.

Lisa says the house looked worse in person than in the photos (possibly because these are a little blurry?). “I was so sad after walking through this house. I just couldn’t understand how anyone could let this beautiful house get as bad as it was.”

She likes the kitchen, which she considers “a blank slate.” Other rooms in the house are, well, not quite as blank as far as slates go:

I actually like this original green-tiled bathroom. It’s like stepping back in time! Looks like there’s an arched wall over the tub in here, too:

Lisa says she can’t stop fantasizing about saving the house: “I wish I could be the one to breathe life back into this historic home.” But, she asks, do we think it’s worth saving? “What would you do?” Cast your vote below and tell her!

You can see the rest of the photos and get more information about the house from the listing.

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For years people told me, “You should sell real estate.” If you’re into houses like I am, then I bet you’ve heard the same thing. But after spending the weekend watching a marathon of “House Hunters” episodes on HGTV, I concluded that I should steer clear of that profession. I’d make a lousy real estate agent. Here are 5 reasons why:

1. Some clients would drive me crazy, and I wouldn’t be good at hiding it.

I’m sure you’ve seen them on “House Hunters,” dismissing perfectly good houses because one room is painted a color they don’t like, or the carpet is a little worn in the family room.  In one episode, a couple wanted to see houses with  two-story family rooms but then kept complaining that the upstairs bedrooms are too small. It would be hard not to roll my eyes at them if they said this to me in person. Let’s just say I’d be biting my tongue. A lot.

2. I couldn’t handle all the phone time.

Have you noticed how much time the agents spend on the phone on those shows? They’re either calling other agents or calling their clients in every other scene. As I have admitted to you before, I hate talking on the phone. Hate. It. If you call me, I will probably reply via e-mail. Or I might drive across town and knock on your door to answer in person. Anything to avoid the phone. So, yeah, real estate is not going to work for me.

3. I wouldn’t like to see my face blown up on a billboard.

Just think how giant my pores would look! Scary thought. (Photo via the hilarious Bad Billboard Project.)

4. I couldn’t sell a boulder in the basement.

Successful agents have a gift for glossing over defects. When we were house hunting, ours never saw a problem that couldn’t be fixed. There was only one bedroom and we needed four? Build a second-story addition! We didn’t like the view of the cell phone tower behind the house? Board up the windows!

One of my favorite “Dick Van Dyke Show” episodes had Rob and Laura finding the house of their dreams, but there was one little problem: a boulder in the basement. Their agent cheerfully suggests that they decorate the rock and make it a focal point.

Good agents can do this with a straight face and convince their clients that nothing is a big deal to fix. They can soothe a home buyer’s fears. I could not. I’d be like, “Honey, you don’t want to live with a rock. Let’s keep looking!” And then we’d spend months (possibly years) looking at every house in the tri-state area until I found one that I thought was good enough for them. (I would also be broke.)

5. Every time a great house came on the market, I’d want to buy it myself.

We actually had an agent who sold more real estate to herself than anyone else. A few years ago she wrote us and said she had to quit the business–it was getting too expensive for her! (You can see inside that great Craftsman bungalow here.)

So now it’s your turn, house lovers. Tell me the reasons why you would or wouldn’t make a good real estate agent! If you already are one, tell us what you love about the job, or the things about it that are tough for you. I’d love to know!

Ever wonder what happened to Suzanne Whang, the long-time host of “House Hunters,” who has been replaced by a bodiless narrator? Here’s the answer.

North by Northwest is considered one of the best Hitchcock film ever made. It was also one of the most commercially successful. The movie follows the classic Hitchcock “Wrong Man Scenario.” Cary Grant is a successful Madison Avenue ad man (think Don Draper) who says things like, “There’s no such thing as a lie. There’s only the expedient exaggeration.”

Then his life gets turned upside down when he gets mistaken for an undercover CIA agent. He’s swept up in a game of cat and mouse that takes him across the country and eventually to the top of Mt. Rushmore for that classic chase scene across the presidents’ faces.

This cool Modernist house, perched on the peak of Mt. Rushmore, is what a lot of us remember most about the movie, right? I’ve gotten a lot of requests for photos of it. And we’ll get to the Vandamm House, as it’s known, but first let’s start back at the beginning of the story.

Roger Thornhill (Grant) is having lunch in the Oak Room of the Plaza Hotel when a couple of thugs force him into their car at gunpoint. They think he’s an undercover agent named George Kaplan.They filmed these scenes on location, and Cary Grant lived in an apartment at the Plaza during filming:

The bad guys drive him here, to the Townsend Estate in Long Island:

Townsend Mansion was a real estate in Glen Cove, Long Island, but the interiors were a set. The estate is known as Old Westbury Gardens, and they provide tours of the home. You can see some cool photos of it being built in 1905 and read about its history here.

The estate as it looks today:

Jessie Royce Landis (below), the actress who played Grant’s mother in the movie, was only 8 years older than he was:

The set designers were Robert Boyle, William A. Horning, Merrill Pye, Henry Grace, and Frank McKelvey.

The library that Thornhill gets locked in. He says, “Don’t worry about me. I’ll catch up on my reading.”

Screenwriter Ernest Lehman says Grant was a perfectionist who often complained about various parts of the script or the way things were being filmed and lobbied to get them changed.

North by Northwest turned out to be Grant’s biggest box-office success.

James Mason played the baddie, Phillip Vandamm, and Martin Landau was perfect as his sinister-looking associate. Hitchcock loved using overhead shots like these. I appreciate them because we get a good look at the rugs:

After escaping from Vandamm’s thugs, Thornhill went to the U.N. to try to figure out what was going on.

Hitchcock wasn’t allowed to film there, so they “stole” a shot of the U.N. exterior with Cary Grant walking in. The other people walking around in the shot didn’t know they were being filmed, or that Grant was walking beside them. (Can you imagine? “Hey, that’s me!”)

The interior of the U.N. was (quite obviously) a matte painting:

The screenplay was written by Ernest Lehman, who won more Best Screenplay Awards from the Writer’s Guild than anyone in history. He was the screenwriter behind other classics like The King and I, West Side Story, Sabrina, and The Sound of Music.

Lehman died in 2005 at the age of 89, so we’re fortunate that he recorded a detailed commentary about North by Northwest.

Hitchcock told him, “I always wanted to do a chase scene across the faces of Mt. Rushmore,” and that was the starting point for the movie. Lehman recalled, “I wanted to write the Hitchcock picture to end all Hitchcock pictures. I wanted something that had wit, sophistication, glamor, action, and lots of changes of locale.”

For the famous crop-duster sequence, they planted some corn in Bakersfield, California, to make it look more like Indiana:

After Thornhill miraculously survives (and the pilot of the plane doesn’t), he surprises Eve by showing up at her room in the Ambassador East Hotel in Chicago. He’s a little dusty but every hair is still in place.

I thought the hotel decor was pretty cool:

The movie was a little racy for the late ’50s. It may not have shown much, but it insinuated a lot about what Roger and Eve were doing when the cameras looked away.

In the dining car in the train, Eve coos, “I never make love on an empty stomach.” It was censored in post-production to “I never discuss love on an empty stomach,” but if you read her lips you can see what she was really saying.

The crew traveled to South Dakota, and Eva Marie Saint, Cary Grant, and James Mason posed for the press before shooting on it was supposed to begin.

Then word leaked that there would be a fight scene and a couple of deaths on the monument, and the government officials barred them from filming it there. The crew flew back to Hollywood, where Mt. Rushmore had to be recreated at MGM.

Those are real shots of the monument from the distance. The rest was Production Designer Robert Boyle’s creation back at the studio.

“I don’t like the way Teddy Roosevelt’s looking at me,” Roger says when looking up at the monument. “I think he’s trying to tell me not to go through with this hare-brained scheme.”

Thornhill meets Van Damm and his crew at the community parks building near the monument, and even it had style:

Check out the cool checkered-wood walls in the cafeteria:

In the scene where Eve (Eva Marie Saint) shoots Roger (Grant), can you spot the mistake in the background?

The little boy at the table behind Eva Marie Saint plugged his ears, knowing the gun was about to go off. I always get a kick out of that!

The Vandamm House:

They needed to come up with a reason why all of the characters would be congregating at Mt. Rushmore, so Lehman decided that the bad guys would have their headquarters nearby. It’s known as “The Vandamm House” after James Mason’s character, Phillip Vandamm.

A lot of people have asked me whether it’s a real house, and if it’s really on top of Mt. Rushmore. Sadly, no, it’s not real. The exterior was a matte painting (a pre-digital effect when a real set or location was combined with a painting), and the interior was created on a soundstage.

In reality, there is no way anything could be built on top of the monument, even temporarily for a film.

According to a fascinating post on Jetset Modern, Hitchcock knew he wanted it to be a Modernist house. In the late ’50s, Frank Lloyd Wright was the most famous Modernist architect in the world. Any house he designed for the film would have been instantly recognizable to audiences.

The problem: they couldn’t afford Wright’s fee. So Hitchcock decided they’d just build a house that looked like one Wright would have designed.

The second problem: the top of Mt. Rushmore was too fragile to build anything on it. The MGM researchers had to get special permits and Park Service escorts just to visit the area in order to photograph and measure it.

According to Sandy McLendon of Jetset Modern:

The house would be created entirely in Culver City, where MGM was located. It would consist of a few sections built at full-scale, as movie sets. The exterior shots would depend on special effects. Certain shots would blend the sets together with the special effects, to create the illusion that the house was real. The final design was of a hilltop house of limestone dressed and laid in the manner made famous by Wright, along with a concrete cantilever under the living room area.

Just when he thinks he’s in the clear, Vandamm’s housekeeper pulls a gun on Thornhill:

McLendon explains how the set was designed:

Certain areas like the outside of the bedroom wing had their exteriors finished, so that they could be shot from inside looking out, or outside looking in.

The interiors were masterpieces of deception: nearly nothing was what it appeared. The limestone walls were mostly plaster, real limestone was used in a few places where the camera would be very close. The expanses of window were mostly without glass; glass reflects camera crews and lights.

All of the scenes involving the Vandamm house were shot at night so that the effects would look more realistic. Read more about it and see examples of how the matte photography technique worked here. (Thanks to Lyle for the info!)

More North by Northwest Movie Trivia:

• North by Northwest was just the working title, but they never came up with anything better. One they considered: The Man in Lincoln’s Nose. (Seriously.)
• Jimmy Stewart was originally considered for the role of Thornhill, but Hitchcock decided he looked “too old.”  Cary Grant was 55 when he filmed it–4 years older than Stewart–but looked younger.
• MGM wanted Cyd Charisse in the role of Eve Kendall, but Hitchcock insisted on Eva Marie Saint.
• MGM designed an entire wardrobe for Saint’s character, but Hitchcock threw out almost everything. She says he took her to Bergdorf-Goodman and selected clothes for her “right off the models.”
• Hitchcock gave Saint three basic directions: 1) Lower your voice. 2) Don’t use your hands. 3) Always look directly into Cary Grant’s eyes.
• North by Northwest was nominated for 5 Oscars but lost in every category.

The movie trailer, humorously presented by Alfred Hitchcock himself:

What’s your favorite Hitchcock movie? I just watched Rebecca again last week and am working on a post about Manderley now. Hitchcock knew how to work a great house into a suspenseful movie!

Visit my TV/Movie Houses page to see other classics I’ve featured, from Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House to Gone with the Wind.

Drool-worthy historic houses by the sea: Completely Coastal.

10 Simple Ideas for a Welcoming Home: The Blessed Nest.

Got neighbors who stop by more often than you’d like? Try putting one of these murals on your garage (funny!): CalFinder Remodeling blog.

Would you live in an abandoned mental hospital? A roundup of repurposed old buildings: Fast Company.

An architect’s clever solution for his tiny apartment in Hong Kong (he even finds room for a hammock!): Planet Green.

Pics of Britain’s narrowest house, which is only 6 feet wide: Daily Mail.

A Vintage Pie Safe gets a makeover: A Beach Cottage.

A “manifesto” for better blog-party etiquette: Serenity Now.

Rachel Ashwell is selling her shabby chic cottage in Malibu: Casa Sugar.

Chick, Chick, Hooray (you know spring is coming when…): Heather Bullard.

Wayne Newton’s Casa de Shenendoah headed for foreclosure: Celebrity Digs HQ.

4 Decorating Lessons from Anthropologie: The Inspired Room.

CalFinder, Completely Coastal, Heather Bullard, and A Beach Cottage are sponsors of my blog. Thanks for visiting them!

There’s an interesting article on MarketWatch touting the must-have features buyers are demanding from new homes now.  An annual survey reveals what is gaining in popularity among home buyers, and what is no longer as important. I thought it would be interesting to take our own little survey to see if you agree–or disagree–with some of their findings. What would be important to you in a new house, and what could you live without?

1. Large Kitchens with Islands. Kitchens are still the best place to spend your design dollars. They’re one room that buyers aren’t willing to downsize. Paul Cardis, CEO of AVID, says granite countertops are a must for move-up buyers and buyers of custom homes, but for others “they are on the bubble.”

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2. Home Offices. People say they’d rather have a study than a formal dining room.

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3. First-Floor Master Bedrooms. This used to be most important for people who didn’t have young children living at home. Now it’s becoming more popular across the board.

4. Outdoor Living Rooms. The survey shows that even people living in colder climates like Canada are spending more time outdoors and want their homes to accommodate them.

5. Soaker Tubs. Losing popularity in the bathroom: whirlpool tubs. Gaining: oversize showers with seating.

Are there features in a new home that would be more important to you than any of these listed here? What would they be?

The annual survey is conducted by AVID Ratings Co. You can read the article with the rest of their findings at MarketWatch. Photos: Coastal Living’s Idea House at top; kitchen via the MLS; home office Country Living; bedroom by Phoebe Howard; screened porch photo designed by Jane Coslick; bath by Sarah Richardson.

When I see a real estate listing with photos like these, from a $475,000 house in Massachusetts, I’m amazed that the agents who took them are still in business. Maybe they could get away with it back when the real estate market was hopping and everyone was buying whatever they listed, but now you have to put a little more effort into it. I mean, c’mon.

As I looked through the photos of this house, I started to think that the agent may have been, um, impaired in some way. I’m trying to understand why she would take a photo of a kitchen in the dark? Or the back deck at night, without a flash? And then–worse–add them to her client’s listing?

Seriously. What kind of agent takes a photo of a bedroom ceiling?

The family cat…

And herself?

If that’s not a good reason to fire your real estate agent, I don’t know what is. (If you missed it, here was the first Good Reason to Fire Your Real Estate Agent.)

P.S. Thanks to Terry, the reader who sent me this listing. If you find something unusual in the real estate listings, send me the link!

Check out my Bad MLS Photos page to see more!

Remember the Practical Magic-inspired kitchen I showed you last week? I thought you might like to see the rest of this amazing Gothic Revival house. It was designed by Derek of Derek M Design, who says his clients wanted a new house with an old soul. I think he pulled it off. If you drove past this house, would you guess that it was finished last year?

“It has truly fooled some people,” Derek says. “The greatest compliment I have gotten so far is when a member of a local historic society asked what year the home was built, and I shocked her with the year 2007-2009. She honestly thought is was a renovation project of a house built in 1860.”

I’m in love with this blue room. I’ve been working on a post about Manderley, and this room reminds me of the “morning room” in Rebecca:

The bedroom has vaulted and beamed ceilings similar to those in the Practical Magic movie house, which inspired them:

How fabulous is this window with the interior shutters?

Here’s the kitchen I showed you last week. You can see the rest of the photos and see side-by-side comparisons with the Practical Magic kitchen that it was inspired by here.

There’s even a charming back staircase similar to the one in Practical Magic. I always wanted one like this off my kitchen:

Many thanks to Derek for sharing this house with us! For more information, visit Derek M Design or check out the entire gallery of photos at Oviatt-Pratt & Associates.

If you could build a new house with the character and spirit of an old one, what style and era would you go for? This one looks pretty good to me!

Are you on Facebook? I am! I have a fan page, which means you don’t have to send me a friend request. Just come on over and click “Become a Fan” at the top of the page to get my updates. See you there!