Been house hunting for a typical 3BR with basement family home on the Hill recently?  Then you know there really have not been too many options.  But this Sunday you’re in luck.  There’s a lovely place open from 1 – 4 on F St NE.

812 F St, NE (just 2 blocks south of H St Corridor), is a charming semi detached federal with lots of character.  3 BR, 2 .5 BA, tin ceilings, cork and hardwood flooring, a finished in law suite AND a thoughtfully renovated kitchen with Bosch appliances.  Listed at $710k.

Because it’s Superbowl Sunday, there aren’t a ton of open houses , but there are some interesting ones.  The full list is posted here.

"Tapiz 2," Acrylic and Silkscreen on Canvas, Courtesy of Pepa Leon.

The Brentwood Arts Exchange at the Gateway Arts Center (4pm to 7pm)

The Brentwood Arts Exchange presents Rivers and Memories- the art of E. J. Montgomery and Lilian Thomas Burwell.  Timed to coincide with Black History Month, this visually engaging exhibition plays on a careful balance between fluid and static motion.  Also on display at the center are the works of ceramicist Susan O’Brien, an Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire.

Brentwood Arts Exchange at the Gateway Arts Center is located at 3901 Rhode Island Avenue Brentwood, MD

Conner Contemporary Art (6pm to 8pm)

Conner Contemporary starts off 2012 with Bodies and Soul by Patrcia Cronin.  Inspired by 19^th century American neo-classical sculpture, Cronin has created large bronze tombs to protest the Federal Government’s stance on gay marriage.  Cronin’s words explain it best “if I can’t have it in life, I’m going to have it in death.”

Conner Contemporary Art is located at 1358 Florida Avenue NE

G Fine Art (6pm to 8pm)

G Fine Art presents Ian Whitmore’s The Devil, a Shadow, the Notice of a Small Falling Leaf.  In this exhibition, three years in the making, Whitmore grapples with iconoclast Andreas Karlstadt’s anguish of believing paradoxically that religious iconography is blasphemous and should be destroyed while simultaneously fearing divine retribution for their destruction.

G Fine Art is located at 1350 Florida Avenue NE.

 Open Studio dc (6-9pm)

Open Studio dc will present recent prints by Carolyn Hartmann and Pepa Leon.  Hartmann created Open Studio dc as a place both to showcase work and as a local center for printmaking and instruction.  For more information about the Open Studio dc including the exhibition and a class schedule, click here.

Open Studio DC is located at 1348 Florida Avenue NE

Tilted Torch Sweet Things at the Red Palace (Performance Starts at 10pm)

The fun never stops in the H Street corridor.  More naughty than nice, this pre-Valentines day show promises to tease, titillate and entertain! Tickets are $10 in advance and $15 at the door.  For additional details and to purchase tickets click here.

The Red Palace is located at 1212 H ST NE

Phil Hutinet is the Editor-in-Chief of East City Art.  You can get more information about East City Art on Facebook  or follow them on Twitter

Fitzy the golden doodle, who most certainly has his game face (and his Pats jersey) on.

The big day is almost here. Depending on your fondness for football, Super Bowl Sunday is either the biggest game of the year or you’re really looking forward to a day of eating snacks. And drinking a few beers. Or maybe you just like the commercials. No matter what, this day has something for everyone. Are you kicking back at a friend’s house or headed out on the Hill? There are plenty of places within walking distance where you can watch the game while expanding your waistline.

A go-to on a regular Sunday, so why not on Super Bowl Sunday? The Argonaut has plenty of seating and TVs to watch the big game.

Nearby, H Street Country Club will be offering food and drink specials during the game.

Union Pub’s heated patio and large projector screen make for another good option. Food and beer specials will be available.

Pour House will have specials, and no shortage of TV sets. The Ugly Mug will have $4 Coors Light drafts, $4 Blue Moon and $12 Coors Light pitchers. Wisdom will have pitchers of Fat Tire, DC BRAU and National Bohemian aka Natty Boh as well as homemade chili.

That should be enough to get you started. One final thing, I know I speak for the many DC by way of New England transplants when I say…Go PATS!

Support local schools while having a blast! Photo by María Helena Carey

If you haven’t marked your calendars, do so right now!

The School Within a School at Peabody Elementary is holding its annual Jazz Gala and Auction on Saturday 17 March 2012 at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 6pm to 10pm. This year, in efforts to make the process green (because the auction is on St. Paddy’s day this year, donchaknow!), tickets are available online NOW, through Eventbrite.

If you want to purchase tickets for the gala, click on this link and you will be taken to the Eventbrite website. Tickets are $35 per person and $120 for a group of four, and it gets you amazing deals to bid on, great entertainment by the Junkyard Saints, and complimentary wine and beer. The best part? You don’t need to print out anything: it’s all seamlessly electronic! Yay!

What are you waiting for?

Originally uploaded to flickr by tonp1

A weekly roundup of interesting miscellany from our fellow neighborhood bloggers.

Borderstan takes a look at the latest outpost of burger joint Black and Orange.  Anybody for a heavyweight No Burger No Cry??

U Street Dirt asks: is our city as invincible as we think?  Some may wonder if one too many convicted councilmembers will hold us back.

Congress Heights on the Rise is tired of feeling like Ward 8 is a dumping ground for group homes.  Seems everyone has their own Reservation 13.

JDLand has the latest on the expansion of the Cervera restaurant empire with two spots in Near Southeast.

Photo by María Helena Carey

So here we are: the first weekend of February in the good ol’ U S of A.

What is there to do?

For starters, there is apparently some fab game going on– they throw this funny-shaped ball back and forth and the players wear tight spandex. I hear it’s pretty good. If you want to watch this mighty American portent, Lauren will have the bar hookup for you tomorrow! And if you couldn’t care less about the game but have heard some crazy amazing things about the ads this year — like, say, the VW ad, or the creepy babies, or the leaked Ferris Bueller CR-V ad — you can always head over to the USA Today/Facebook Admeter and vote for your favorites!

After the Superbowl — or the first season of that one indie show, perhaps, punctuated by the Puppy Bowl — tune to the Food Network’s “Cupcake Wars” at 10pm EST and watch our own Sweet Lobby as they vie for cupcake supremacy!

Okay. We’ve taken care of your game/consumerist needs and we’ve contributed to your girth. How about we expand your mind? The Hill Center at the Old Naval Hospital has you covered! On Saturday 4 February, Patricia Elam will be teaching writing workshops on how to create authentic-sounding dialogue and how to create characters that walk off the page. Click on the links to find out more information, or visit the programs page at the Hill Center’s website.

If you are a fan of the theatre, you can get your tickets online to go The Gaming Table, by 18th century playwright Susanna Centlivre at the Folger Theatre at the Folger Theatre. You will be dazzled by the amazing set, with its right-side-up/upside-down playing card look; you will love the beautiful Restoration period costumes; you’ll enjoy the witty and updated couplets and dynamic repartee. You will be impressed by the excellent acting and you may kick yourself once or twice because you probably don’t go see plays at the Folger as often as you should.

(Shame on you!)

But most of all, you will walk away amazed at the fact that this beautifully and meticulously adapted play, whose original name was The Basset Table –except that no one knows what Basset is anymore– actually passes the Bechdel Test: in the play, there are 1) two or more women, and 2) they talk to each other 3) about something other than a man! 18th century feminism, for the win! The Gaming Table is playing through March 4, and you can get tickets online clicking this link. If you go, make sure to look at the excellent exhibit, “Shakespeare’s Sisters.” In it, you can see a copy of “The Basset Table,” aging quite gracefully.

Whether high or lowbrow, we all hope you enjoy your weekend!

Photo courtesy of Pound the Hill.

Picture this:

You’re walking down that wide, tree-lined boulevard we call Pennsylvania Avenue. It’s spring, and you see children walk by in strollers and dogs and their owners briskly sauntering by. The sun starts to set dramatically over the Capitol. In the air, the unmistakeable scent of apple blossoms mingles with Moroccan lentils, or perhaps Coq au Vin dumplings. There is certainly a distinct Nutella note in that bouquet, as well! Your step picks up and you arrive at the newest destination for upscale bistro fare on the Hill, Pound! Catch your breath while you scarf down a plate of crispy Cuban chicharrones paired with just the perfect Malbec –  unless you get there after I do, in which case both the chicharrones and the Malbec may be gone.

Owner Karl Johnson and Chef Jonathan Taub unveiled the new direction for Pound the Hill this last Thursday: a wine and beer bar married to light, delicious fare from different parts of the world. A quick look through the menu may have you thinking less about that work proposal and more about just how hungry this whole “work” thing makes you, and just how much you need to have a beer or some good wine and food pairing when it’s over, right?

The opening of the bistro means that Pound’s afternoon hours have changed: the coffeeshop will be closing at 4 pm and the bistro will open at 5 pm. Pound’s bistro hours are Sunday through Thursday, 5pm to 10pm and Friday & Saturday, 5pm to 11pm.

(However, the bar stays open until 12am, so that’s an extra hour for you and me to have some Malbec).

Pound the Hill is located at 621 Pennsylvania Avenue SE.

Originally uploaded to flickr by blue2likeyou

Here at The Hill is Home, we want to help you. But you need to help us first! When do you visit our site? And how often? Are there weekly posts you always read or look forward to?

Please fill out the brief questionnaire and let us know a little about you and how you use our site. We’d be delighted to hear from you.

]]> http://www.thehillishome.com/2012/02/its-survey-time/feed/ 0 http://www.thehillishome.com/2012/01/tv-alert-watch-the-sweet-lobby-on-cupcake-wars/ http://www.thehillishome.com/2012/01/tv-alert-watch-the-sweet-lobby-on-cupcake-wars/#comments Tue, 31 Jan 2012 16:32:03 +0000 Jon Penndorf http://www.thehillishome.com/?p=24998 You’ve tasted their macarons.  You’ve sipped their hot cocoa (voted one of the best in DC, mind you). You may have even tasted their elegant madeleines.  Now it’s time for the owners of The Sweet Lobby to show what they are made of on the Food Network’s “Cupcake Wars.”

This Sunday after the Super Bowl, you can watch The Sweet Lobby’s Winnette McIntosh Ambrose and her brother Timothy at 10:00 p.m. EST as they battle for cupcake supremacy on “Cupcake Wars.”  Cupcakes have obviously swept the nation into a sugary frenzy, and this Food Network program pits baker against baker to see whose cupcake is crowned king.  Our hometown heroes (both engineers with degrees from MIT, by the way) opened their sweet shop on Barracks Row not long ago, but their reputation for creativity and unique flavors has spread quickly.

You’ll be stuffed from Super Bowl snacks on Sunday so top off your day with video dessert on “Cupcake Wars” and cheer on the Hill’s own!

Additional note: Winnette tells us that fans who would like to watch the episode in the company of other cupcake aficionados can do so at The Ugly Mug, Tunnicliff’s Tavern, and the Elephant & Castle (on Pennsylvania Avenue NW).  Cupcakes will be served at these establishments during the show, courtesy of The Sweet Lobby!

]]> http://www.thehillishome.com/2012/01/tv-alert-watch-the-sweet-lobby-on-cupcake-wars/feed/ 0 http://www.thehillishome.com/2012/01/hill-buzz-132/ http://www.thehillishome.com/2012/01/hill-buzz-132/#comments Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:00:18 +0000 Claudia Holwill http://www.thehillishome.com/?p=24981

Photo by María Helena Carey

• We Love DC declared its love for the Anacostia River.
• Housing Complex suggested Hill East, along with Shaw and NoMa, as ideal locations for “Apodments” — one-room units that can be rented for much less than the more fully equipped apartments going up all over town.
• Curbed DC and Urban Turf shared IBG’s drawings for their proposed apartments at Specialty Hospital at 700 Constitution Avenue, NE.
• After her story on the International Graduate University last week, Housing Complex‘s Lydia DePillis followed up with a post about their retro bathrooms.
• Curbed DC reported that the Eveyln, on the 600 block of Independence Avenue, SE, sold out in fewer than 90 days.
• JDLand brought us updates on the Boilermaker Shops and new photos of the Foundry Loft Apartments.
• All We Can Eat reported that the yet-to-be-named brewery coming to the Boilermaker Shops had a head brewer: Megan Parisi.
• Housing Complex shared the recently released streetcar study, which finds that “benefits from real estate investment spurred by the streetcar would cover 40 to 60 percent of the $1.5 billion construction cost.”
• Urban Turf also also looked at how the streetcars will increase property values.
• Eater DC interviewed the GM of Smith Commons on its one year anniversary.
• Farewell, Capital City Diner: We Love DC, All We Can Eat, DCist, HuffPost DC, and All We Can Eat (photos)