When you live in the heart of a thriving city like Dallas, your apartment building can be one of the best places to relax and unwind. Choose to live in a high-rise building with a stunning rooftop deck and your apartment will be the hottest address in town. Watch the excitement of the city unfold — and take in gorgeous skyline views — from the comfort of your own home.
Turning commercial warehouses into luxury residential living spaces has been happening in New York and Miami for years. Although Dallas has trailed behind in the luxury warehouse department, it’s finally arrived. Now some of the most incredible homes you could ever imagine are renovated warehouses in the Design District.
Viyet sells all sorts of spendy furniture. Giorgio USA is among the priciest and most popular.
Bargain hunters (with taste), start your engines. Recently I’ve been in a decorating mood. It all started with a pair of bedside tables I stumbled upon at Mitchell Gold that were on the sale rack. I spiffed them up by adding quartzite tops. It’s been weeks and I still smile when I see them. While I was looking for remnant stone, I found marble baseboards that match my bathroom floor. From there I decided to finish a hall closet that had been junk storage.
Note: Another reason high-rises are good. When you need someone to install a small amount of baseboard, you can knock on doors of renovating neighbors and see if their tile guy wants a small side job. The perfect solution for tiny jobs that are notoriously difficult to get done these days.
Finally, I decided to design my own media cabinet, end tables, and a built-in shelving unit/bar. I visited the Design District to see all the styles I love, but am too poor to afford, for inspiration. Quite ambitious of me.
Of course the day after I’d sent the plans to the carpenter, I opened my browser bookmarks and found Viyet.com listed in a 2014 Huffington Post article. (Yes, I’m that anal.)
Not just furniture and lighting. Fabric for drapes and upholstery too.
For those who don’t recall the 2014 article (ha!), Viyet (a play on “vignette”) is a virtual consignment shop opened in 2013. But it’s more. They only take the cream of the design district crop. Furniture must retail for over $1,000, lighting over $500 and knickknacks over $100. In any of these categories you’ll be hard-pressed to find much approaching these minimum standards.
The stuff comes from showrooms who don’t want to sully themselves by selling sample pieces to consumers, plus rich folks jettisoning treasures while remodeling. Viyet staff evaluate, photograph and measure each piece (so you know the real condition of a piece and that their judgement is consistent). They document and photograph any boo-boos. “Gently used” likely being the worst condition they sell. There is a “revive” category for restoration work, but it’s usually reserved for antique pieces. Scratches are the most common fault. They also help sellers set prices. But prices are not hard with all items having a “make an offer” button. And like any consignment store, DO make an offer.
Because items are personally inspected, Viyet only receives items from certain areas like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Dallas, etc.
Kayaking Under the Houston St Viaduct, 2013. (Photo: Amanda Popken)
This Wednesday you’re invited to join a discussion about the Trinity.
A river that has defined our city for over a century.
Yet its place in our lives still remains little more than afterthought.
Millions of taxpayer dollars funded a very extensive plan:
To build, beautify, and manage this park — has anyone actually read it?
Years have passed applying for approvals, securing bonds, political wars, a design contest, expert opinions and decades later we have:
A few more trails, fewer trees, stunning bridges, and a death-defying rapid.
Video courtesy of Uptown Dallas, Inc.
Something has to be done. Uptown is beginning to feel a bit like Greenville Ave. did a few years back. Remember? The late night crime and violence, residential streets overrun with youthful overindulgence, and uninvited visitors parking in front of residences … to put it nicely. Uptown is on the cusp of being known as similarly problematic area — unless we can do something now to curb that trajectory. As Uptown Dallas, Inc. works diligently to attract more young families, improve the schools, and focus on great parks, the late night bar scene is (literally) spilling into the streets and driving a higher police presence.
Two potential solutions have surfaced and exploration began last night at a formal community input session hosted by the City of Dallas Department of Sustainable Development and Construction:
All photos: Dan Piassick
For creative-minded interior designers, one of the hardest parts of their jobs can be selling their ideas to clients and helping them “see” the vision for a space. But for Carl Lowery, it’s a natural fit.
Carl Lowery
That’s because Lowery took a circuitous route to becoming a Dallas interior designer. This Louisiana native started his career in telecommunications, eventually becoming the director of marketing for a large telecom company. But several years in, Lowery found himself growing bored and started going to antique auctions, eventually opening the Oak Lawn Antiques showroom in 1999.
“It seemed as I started to purchase the products in auctions that I was very good at selecting items that complemented each other, and as I put together the showroom, it seemed like I was good at merchandising,” he said. “So I opened three showrooms total in Dallas, Fort Worth, and Southlake to great success and the rest is history. Now, instead of the showrooms, we work out of a studio in the Design District.”
Lowery’s ability to clearly communicate his creative ideas and help clients envision the final product is one of his strongest skills as owner and founder of Wesley-Wayne Interiors. It paves the way for a relationship built on trust, with happy clients at the end of a job.
“I just love making people happy and I love improving spaces, taking full advantage of spaces, and making sure they not only function the way the client wants, but they are very aesthetically pleasing,” he said. “When the client sees the final space and they have a huge smile on their face or get tears in their eyes, that makes my day.”
The Dallas real estate community was out in force to greet Sir Richard Branson Monday evening in the sizzling Dallas Design District, and Sir Richard lived up to his reputation of an innovator who would never consider doing anything ordinary.
Branson rode into the parking lot, future site of the state’s first Virgin Hotel at Hi Line Drive and Turtle Creek Boulevard, on a white stallion with Miss Texas astride, wearing a Virgin red cowboy hat and red cowboy boots.
“He told me he wanted to arrive one of three ways,” said Dunhill Partners founder Bill Hutchinson, owner of the 33 acres where the new hotel will be located. “By hot air balloon, on a Texas steer, or a white horse.”
Hutchinson says he called his insurance broker, who advised the horse as having the least amount of risk.
And so in Sir Branson rode on a hot Texas evening, posing for photos with Mayor Rawlings, City Councilwoman Monica Alonzo, Dirk Nowitzki, and the Dallas-based development team of Gatehouse Capital CEO Marty Collins, The Crossland Group founder Luke Crossland, and Virgin’s brand CEO. Everyone grabbed a gold shovel where the dirt met the asphalt parking lot that will be the sprawling lobby of the first Texas Virgin Hotel come fall of 2018. Dirt was flying everywhere!
Branson’s nod to Texas culture — hat, boots, and a beauty queen — along with his signature red and stagger, impressed. He danced to a little C&W — great dancer, obviously an athletic man at age 66. He spoke briefly, too, saying the last time he was in Texas was to write a love letter to the City of Dallas to get his Virgin Airlines a slot at Love Field, what he called “Love City”. That visit also included body surfing at The Rustic in Uptown.
“If you write a love letter, and your entreaty is accepted, the next thing you need is a hotel,” said Branson.
Corrugated metal, Cyprus, HardiePlank and a beautiful blue door have introduced a new design aesthetic to the Bird Streets.
The Good brothers are at it again. Our Dallas version of HGTV’s The Property Brothers has just listed their latest new contemporary construction at 4823 Linnett Lane in the Bird streets, for $699.900.
It’s the best new nest for anyone with an urban sensibility that longs to be in close proximity to the Southwestern Medical District, Dallas Design District, Love Field or downtown. It’s also a stone’s throw from one of the best elementary schools in Dallas, the K.B. Polk Center for Academically Talented and Gifted
Location, location, location.
