Luxury Housing Trends & Home Improvement Ideas

So, you’ve actually managed to convince your dog to sleep (or at least hang out) in the backyard instead of on indoors the couch/bed/recliner. That’s more than we ever managed with our pets. If you do have an outdoor dor, it might be nice to give Fido a place to hide from the shade or the rain when you’re not home. Any sort of cover would do, but you might want a dog house that actually looks good in your backyard. There are lots of options available that don’t require much assembly.

Here are a couple you can check out:

The Mansion Dog House


Mini Mansion Dog House


Room with a View Dog House


The Chalet Dog House

As summer approaches, more people are wheeling their old grill out of the garage or thinking of buying an upgrade. While gas and charcoal grills remain popular, today’s technology is offering something new: an infrared grill. One example is the Fire Magic “Ultimate Barbecue” from RH Peterson. The grill’s infrared elements heat up to 1700 degrees; this certainly cooks meat swiftly and (according to the site) is great for sealing in flavor. These infrared grills aren’t cheap, but if you’re serious about your grilling, it may be something to look into.

Also read: Pricey New Gadgets Heat Up Winter Grilling from the Wall Street Journal (the article looks at infrared grills and other toys).

Most new bathrooms come with anti-scald valves, but if you’re living in an older house, you might be familiar with the experience of wild fluctuations in the water temperature when someone else in the house draws on the water supply. Anti-scald valves are relatively simple to install compared to other bathroom components that get upgraded during renovations.

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Today’s new houses have become good at energy efficiency by keeping more heat in. The downside? Allergens and indoor pollutants get trapaped inside, too. HEPA filtrations systems are no longer limited to small room-based units. Models like the Fantech Whole House HEPA Filtration System attach to your house’s central air or heating system and filter your air to keep it clean and pure. At $435, the system is pretty affordable, too (I paid 1/3rd of that last year for a HEPA air purifier for one room).

If you’re looking for a reason to take a trip to Las Vegas next month, the 2005 Kitchen/Bath Industry Show and Conference will have a lot of neat toys, showcasing the coming trends for these favored household rooms. The conference is from May 9-12 and the expo is from May 10-12, both at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

Information on registering is at kbis.com.

Whether you’re remodeling the whole bathroom or just replacing a chipped sink, there are a number of different kinds of sink materials to choose from. Prices vary, and they each have different strengths.

Ceramic Sinks

You can get custom glazed ceramic sinks from local potteries and from some larger manufacturers. Overall, ceramic is reasonably durable, but sinks made from the material have a tendency to chip or crack.

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What do you do if you like the look of stainless steel, but you’re not interested in replacing your perfectly good appliances? You paint that stainless steel on, of course. GE puts out a paint for appliances that looks like the real thing, but that is based on automotive finishes and doesn’t smudge like true stainless steel.

If you do want new appliances, but are turned off by the high prices of stainless steel, you might want to read Stainless Alternatives with Painless Price Tags, an article from the Real Estate section of the Wall Street Journal; it takes a look at some lower cost alternatives that have a similiar look: “To lure cost-conscious customers, some appliance makers are introducing similar-looking products made with cheaper materials, from aluminum to lower-grade steel painted in colors like “meteorite,” and even plastic that looks like stainless steel.”

Ceiling fans are good choices since air ventilation helps keep homes clean and allergon free, but a lot of the older fans out there are dated and drab. If you’re looking for a fan that matches your decor or expresses your personality, you may want to take a look at Fanimation, Inc. They have a number of styles such as the single-bladed “Enigma” which moves air just as efficiently as its multi-bladed siblings.

I know what you’re thinking; what’s luxurious about garage doors? Well, with today’s two and three car garages, garage doors take up a significant portion of the front of the house. Their bland utilitarian features can slant the overall aesthetic of the house from impressive to blah. Did you know that non-generic garage doors can increase the resale value of your home?

Today’s garage door trends are to incorporate the doors into the design of the house. You don’t need to go so far as to order custom garage doors; many manufacturers are recognizing the homeowner’s desire for better looking doors and offering more appealing styles. One example is carriage-style garage doors. They look like they open up like old-fashioned doors in carriage houses, but in fact slide up overhead, just like normal garage doors.

For ideas that might work for your home, check out these residential garage door manufacturers:

Clopay Wood and Metal Garage Doors
Summit Custom Wood Garage Doors
Designer Garage Doors

Window blinds can be a hassle–it seems like the cord is always getting tangled or even if they work well, they gather dust. Pella’s “between-the-glass” window blinds offer a solution to both those problems and can work with either windows or patio doors. The blinds actually go between the inside and outside panes of glass. There’s no cord, rather you simply press a button to raise or lower the blinds.

Pella Between-the-Glass Window Blinds