As the hassles of the holidays begin to bear down, it’s important to plan your season wisely. And so this weekend, before the travel and relatives and debilitating amounts of food began, I set out intending to get a start on my holiday shopping.

Most of the friends and family on my list are fairly easy (though, Dad, if you’re reading this, you might want to ask Santa for the new Judge Judy DVD; I can’t do it). But there’s one problem:

What to get the cat who has everything?

Though I’ve invested in a variety of carpet, sisal, and catnip-dusted cardboard cat scratchers, I’ve thus far resisted getting my pal Joanie a good piece of cat furniture. So she uses our couch, chair, and rugs—anything but the aforementioned cat scratchers—as her posts.

Now, our (and by our I mean my boyfriend’s) furniture looks like we have a cat, or maybe eight. But while it’s fine to take a risk on a $40 post that the cat uses twice, it’s much harder to take the leap on a piece of furniture that can run in the hundreds. (Nevermind where to put it so that guests don’t look at you funny.)

So after some extensive research, I’ve narrowed it down to three: (more…)

Last week, Bostonista jumped at the chance to watch the Bruins-Maple Leafs game from The Lofts, part of a $4 million renovation project that was recently completed at the TD Banknorth Garden.

After taking the elevator to the sixth floor, we entered the space that was formerly Banners Restaurant to find that it had changed dramatically.

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The past months of mud-slinging ads, nationally televised emotional breakdowns, and the revival of the Saturday Night Live political skit have Bostonista alternately grinning, groaning, and feeling decidedly patriotic.

You already know about our favorite political dessert. Now, we’re sharing a few hot new accessories for fall. (more…)

Yesterday was dark, moody, with occasional downpours, a perfect backdrop for a trip to check out one of the strangest buildings I’ve ever stumbled upon in Boston. Squeezed between the Fenway and the turnpike is a creaky, century-old edifice built specifically for artists during the gilded age, called Fenway Studios.

Stepping in from the rain, I was greeted by a terra cotta tile floor, a wrought iron pendant lamp, and deep wood paneling. As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I could see the elevator ahead—one of those expanding metal grate kinds that you can lose a finger in. All of which felt vaguely foreboding.

Once on a floor (there are four), the long hallway hosts an endless number of wooden doors, each with a unique knocker, some brass, so wood, which give a glimpse at the artist working within. Every unit has 14-foot high ceilings, a loft for sleeping, and boatloads of windows, all facing north for that perfect indirect light that artists adore. And each artist, some of whom have lived here for more than four decades, presents his or her own interpretation of what it means to be an esthete. (more…)

Every so often Bostonista has a hankering for a road trip. Last week’s tropical weather—sunshine one minute, thunder and lightening the next—put us in the mood to skip town for a night, Boys on the Side-style. (Minus the men, natch; oh, and Drew Barrymore.) Lucky for us, earlier in the month we’d been invited to posh Kennebunkport for the opening party of Hidden Pond, that town’s newest luxury resort.

Created by power developers Tim Harrington and Juan Urtubey, Hidden Pond is like the Ritz Carlton of summer camps. Fourteen “cottages”—and these are cottages the way the homes along Newport’s Cliff Walk are cottages—dot a compound landscaped with towering birch trees and thick ferns. A paved walkway connects the two-bedroom houses, each of which was decorated by a different interior designer.

By the time we arrived, very fashionably late, the 400-person casual gala was in full swing. We were greeted by Boston realtor extraordinaire Ricardo Rodriguez, our host for the evening, and his partner, Menino right-hand man Michael Kelley. We sipped champagne-infused lemonade and cottage hopped, meeting local and national designers and the who’s-who of Kennebunkport.

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Like many apartment-dwellers, we’re oh-so-nostalgic for the fireplaces and campfires of our youth. But we’re also the owners of a mild fire phobia—not a three-chimney Wellesley Colonial.

What to do?

We’ve heard of flueless fireplaces—contraptions that require neither wood nor a chimney nor complicated installations—but the only one we’d seen resembled a flat-screen TV. Cool, but not quite conducive to gathering ’round.

On a recent trip to the Design Center, however, we discovered another flueless design we could definitely live with. Australian company EcoSmart has created a flueless, freestanding, and gorgeously chic fireplace that runs on ethanol. (more…)

Bear with us as we sneak in one last SATC post. Today we’re analyzing the wardrobe of a minor player: Carrie’s apartment.

Much has been made of Carrie’s ridiculously fabulous lifestyle, supposedly on a quasi-employed-freelancer budget. Yeah, she owned $40 grand worth of heels. Yeah, she took endless four-block cabs while wearing said heels. And yeah, there were the drinks, the daily shopping, and the seemingly hourly catch-up meals with the girls.

But at least the television set designers kept Carrie’s apartment somewhat average (…if you consider a rent-controlled Upper East Side one-bedroom “average”). We took comfort in the fact that Carrie’s bedroom and bathroom sort of resembled our own less-than-posh digs.

If you’ve seen the movie, though, you know that Carrie’s pad gets a major makeover. And even though her new place drives us crazy in a “is sex columnist actually code for hedge fund manager?” kind of way, we still like to ogle.

Here’s what happened: (more…)

Every April, Europe throws a huge furniture party in Milan (Salone del Mobile) where 348,000 design junkies gather to find out what’s hot, and what’s not. One month later, New York answers in kind with its own smaller version, the International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF).

We’ll cover the Milan show in our fall issue of Boston Home, but below we give you the upshot of New York right here, right now, even before the New York Times. Bottom line: color is out unless it’s “green,” and wallpaper is hot, hot, hot. So here’s our new, improved, post-ICFF wish list (with a wink): (more…)

Finding parking on what used to be the fringes of the South End is getting harder. Last night, I had to squeeze my tiny hatchback into a dubious spot on Shawmut just before Washington. The block had multiple, vaguely conflicting parking signs, requiring a degree in logic to solve. Well, at least the Boston Traffic Authority and I interpreted them the same way, this time.

So, off to Banq. While the restaurant has an enormous belle-epoch canopy to announce its entry, actually finding an operable door was less than easy. Once you discover where it is (indicated by a small arrow below eye level for most), you’re suddenly in-the-know, and can relax sipping beer (or one of the myriad urban concoctions on the drink menu), amused by others’ foiled attempts to gain access.

But that gets old, much like the clientele, which tends toward empty nesters who just traded their Sudbury colonials for 1,000 square foot “lofts” with floor to ceiling windows and “artistic” neighbors. (more…)