Dear Reader
Works in Progress
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Every summer, we produce our before-and-after issue, with a collection of intriguing projects by equally intriguing people. This publishing tradition is more about semantics than remodeling. (Isn’t everything we publish an after?) But it’s also a mentality that embodies how we do things in Dallas. Dallas people refuse to leave good enough alone. That is why we have a Calatrava bridge in construction and a new opera house in the works. The restlessness and ambition in our city propel us to improve ourselves relentlessly (plastic surgery notwithstanding!).
On the home front, Dallas restlessness and ambition have created a spectacular economy to be sure. I recently met a woman who lives in a house built in 1996, and she was bragging about being on her third kitchen remodel. (I will not tell you how many husbands she has had in the same time period.) But the people who captivate our editors are those who use home improvement as a means of personal expression. For every 10 tract houses, there is a remarkable individual or family or collective doing things his, her, or its way, and Dallas has more than its share of these lifestyle renegades. Like Angie Bolling, whose tiny cottage in East Dallas is so Fried Green Tomatoes that you might think you are on a stage set. Surprise (not): Bolling is an actress. Or Harl and Jim Asaff’s lake house, if one would call it that, is a cooking kibbutz where friends gather on the weekends and holidays to chop, saut, and stir together. (We all need to take notes on this one: The house requires little to no air conditioning in the summer thanks to its design and materials.) The Hickman residence is another. The house “quirky, smart, and original” is obviously owned by an artist. It is one of the most beguiling before-and-afters we have ever published.
Dallas is an amazing work in progress, and we love chronicling its private side. If our city and its residents were happy to leave good enough alone, the pages of D Home would look no more exciting than the average American city. Instead, our stories “our people” are one of a kind. Keep up the grand pursuit, and send us photos of what you’ve done. We’re already collecting before-and-afters for next year’s edition, and I’d love to see your work.
Enjoy this issue and let me hear from you.
Christine Allison
Editor and Publisher
[email protected]
