Luxury Housing Trends & Home Improvement Ideas

The Wall Street Journal’s Real Estate section has an article called Luxury Playhouses Are Too Costly to Play In that takes a look at the expenses involved with purchasing playhouses today. For wealthy buyers, $23,000 for a “Well Appointed House… its Summer Cottage, complete with a cedar-shingled roof and bay windows with flower boxes” may not be a big deal, but for those who have time to go the do-it-yourself route, I recommend Kid’s Places to Play. The full-color book offers instructions on how to build everything from treehouses, to skateboard ramps, to a frontier-style stockade fort with lookout.

Not everyone is into maple cabinets, granite counter tops, and stainless steel appliances. If you’ve ever thought a kitchen with an old-fashioned look (but modern technology) sounds neat, you may want to check out some of the retro-look kitchen appliances on the market now.

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There are a lot of things you buy and never use, but a hot tub probably isn’t going to fall into that category (speaking from experience!). Today’s hot tubs are much easier to maintain than they were in the past, and technology and imagination are combining to give them great, new features that can wow party guests or set the mood for a romantic evening. News article Hot Tubs Getting Hotter takes a look hot tub trends and their increasing popularity amongst home owners. Just some of the mentioned add-ons are: waterfall effects, stereo systems with regular and underwater speakers, “color-kinetic lighting,” and a wide variety of high powered jets designed to hit all your different muscles.

Everyone likes the look of hardwood floors, but there are other benefits to installing them as well. Even with frequent steam cleanings, carpets hold in animal danders, mildew, mites, pollens, and dust. If you have any trouble with asthma or allergies, your house may be the number one culprit for keeping you down. Hardwood floors are also easier to clean than carpets.

Helpful sites that delve deeper into the benefits of hardwood floors:

Why Hardwoods?
The Seattle Floor site has a FAQ that addresses the benefits of hardwood floors and answers other floor questions.

The Winter 2005 issue of Home Appliance has a section on fighting asthma and allergies that can be triggered (or worsened) by air stuffed with invisible pollens, mold spores, animal danders, and the like. Here is a summary of the article’s suggestions for improving the air quality in your home:

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If you like bar soap, but you’re tired of cleaning soap residue out of the dish or from around the sink, a magnetic soap holder may be just the ticket. First, you install the soap holder (wall mount and sink mount options are available, some of a more permanent nature than others), then you simply stick a small metal disk in the soap and hang it suspended from the holder.

Samuel Heath Magnetic Soap Holder

If you have kids and/or pets, you know how hard it can be to keep your home looking good. That brilliant new chaise lounge may be the perfect complement to your decor now, but wait until the first Kool-Aid stain…

Crypton “Super Fabric” may be the answer. It’s made to resist stains, odors, mildew, water and hard treatment of all sorts. Cleaning magic markers, spaghetti, Kool-Aid and other infamous stains are made simple. It comes in numerous styles, so there’s no need to worry about blah furniture. Crypton fabric costs about $5 more per yard than other fabrics, but it may be worth it in the long run.

Crypton Fabric

Backsplashes are moving from being merely functional to spicing up the whole kitchen. Aquarius Laser Etching specializes in “the integration of art and stone.” They use laser etching to make everything from floor inlays to kitchen backsplashes. You can choose a design you know you’ll love (even a reproduction of your favorite painting would be fair game) or work with them to come up with a custom design.

Aquarius Laser Etching

Granite is very in for countertops these days, but those big slabs of granite can be pricey. A cheaper, but still handsome, alternative is granite tiles. The cleaning of the grout joints in a busy kitchen can be a little more maintenance for tiles, but they tend to hold up well over time and can look as good as their slab counterparts.

For more information, check out this FAQ on granite tiles.