Luxury Housing Trends & Home Improvement Ideas

If you need some overhead lighting to brighten up your living space, track lighting can be a wonderful choice. It works especially well in retrofit situations when there isn’t enough room in the ceiling to cut cans for recessed fixtures. Consisting of a surface-mounted metal rail/track and hanging or mounted light heads, these systems are easy to install without tearing holes into the ceiling. They can be mounted along beams (such as the exposed beams you might have in a log or timberframe home) or even in skylight wells.

Some of the additional benefits of track lighting are that it’s easy to add another light head to the track if you decide you want more illumination down the line. You can also remove or move existing lamps long after the initial installation.

A typical track is 120 volt and can be easily found in black or white 2-, 4-, and 8-foot lengths from any home improvement store. Light heads come in just about any style you can imagine. Expect to pay about $50 for a 4-foot length of track and $40 to $100 for track heads.

More information in Ultimate Lighting Design.

When you think about home improvement projects you can take on, replacing the garage doors might not be the first thing that comes to mind, but since they take up so much real estate on the front of the house, garage doors can do a lot to improve (or detract from) curb appeal. With their aluminum frames, these glass doors are somewhat reminiscent of shoji screens and lend a contemporary look to the house. They even do a bit to disguise the fact that these are indeed garage doors.

Available over at Clopay, they’re part of the Avante Collection. Glass garage doors can come in clear, tinted, frosted, or mirrored styles, and they are usually set into wood or aluminum channels. They cost between $1,500 to $3,000 to install and can look quite handsome, but you do pay an additional price in lower insulation values than with other materials.

Clopay

The garage seems to be the space in the house that’s most likely to be filled with clutter, so it’s no surprise that there are all sorts of garage organization systems out there. You can get cabinet and shelf assemblies that take up whole walls (and cost quite a bit to boot), but sometimes a few simple hooks here and there can go a long ways toward giving you more usable storage space.

These hooks from Rubbermaid can get a full-sized ladder off the floor, letting you use that space for something else (or just clearing the area of clutter). Meant to be installed on a rail (also from Rubbermaid), the two-hook set can hold up to 50 pounds. As long as you’re installing the rail, you could check out the vertical ball holder, power tool holder, and other items that can be suspended from it as well.

Rubbermaid

So, you’ve decided to build an outdoor fireplace in order to create a relaxing outdoor living environment (or a rocking place to entertain friends and family). Or maybe you’re just thinking about adding a fireplace right now and you’re looking for ideas. You can buy simple portable fire pits, but if you want something that will be a lasting part of your home (and increase its value down the road), you can install a built-in fireplace on your patio.

The materials and design should reflect the style of your home. For a southwestern style fireplace, these colorful ceramic tiles work wonderfully against the stucco surround (let’s face it: stucco by itself can be a bit drab). They’re made by Native Tile and Ceramics, a company with a large line of colorful tiles you can peruse for ideas.

http://www.nativetile.com

You’ve probably seen mica lamps around, even if you didn’t know what they were called. The hand riveted copper lamps first came on the scene 100 years ago, all crafted from materials that developed a rich “old time patina” over time. There are companies that specialize in creating mica lamps today. You can get authentic period designs or you can have something custom made that uses the traditional materials and is more loosely based on the historical styles.

This custom mica ceiling fixture was made by the Mica Lamp Company.

http://www.micalamps.com

Whether you’re building your dream home from scratch or remodeling the one you’re living in, choosing a flooring material is a huge part of the process. Do you want hardwoods? Stone? Tile? Laminate? A green product? There are many choices out there today. Two of the most popular are hardwoods and tile (whether ceramic, stone, terra cotta, or some other material). You don’t have to pick between the two if you like both; you could combine wood and tile to create a unique and memorable look for your floors.

In this picture from Conklin’s Authentic Barnwood, the company used Chestnut wood inlaid with tile. It’s a little reminiscent of a parquet floor, but the contrasting materials create a truly unique style. You can choose from many species of wood and types/sizes of tile to create your own one-of-a-kind flooring.

http://www.conklinsbarnwood.com/

If you’ve got some branches you need to trim, and the hedge clippers just aren’t up to the task, you might have to get out a hand saw. But it can be awkward maneuvering that long blade into tight spots, not to mention a bit of a work out to saw the branches off. An alternative is Black & Decker’s Handisaw.

The cordless power hand saw has a small but efficient blade that makes it a good choice for tight spaces. It can be used to cut branches, but it also makes an easy job of cutting drywall, PVC pipe, wood up to an inch thick, and copper tubing. It’s available online for about $40:

Black & Decker CHS6000 Handisaw Cordless Hand Saw

If you live in an area that gets a lot of snow each year, and snow plows drive down your road, you may have had your mailbox get buried under flying snow from time to time. The weight of the stuff en masse might even cause some damage. A smart idea is to get a MailSwing pivoting mailbox, basically a box that is attached to a swinging arm. That way it simply glides out of the way if it’s hit with flying snow.

Made from galvanized steel, these “MailSwings” are made to be pretty indestructible (it might even survive the local kids’ attempts to play mailbox baseball).

Do make sure you visit your local post office before installing something like this. They’ll let you know what regulations govern mailbox installation (you want to make sure your postal worker can reach your box, after all).

A complete MailSwing package will cost you about $200 from Mainely Metals.

Today’s energy efficient windows are much better at preventing drafts in the house than windows installed a few decades ago, when a single sheet of glass was held in the frame with putty. This is why replacing your home’s windows, though a costly home improvement, can end up saving you money on heating bills in the long run. Today, windows come with vinyl gaskets (to eliminate drafts) and doubled sheets of glass, which form a well-insulated barrier. For even more insulation, you can buy windows with between-the-glass pockets that are filled with krypton or argon (since these gases are heavier than air they offer better barriers to the movement of heat).

The cost of new windows will vary depending on the design, materials, and how energy efficient you want them. You could spend as little as $150 for a window purchased off the shelf at a home improvement store, or you could spend $3,000 each for pieces made by a custom window maker. For a mid-range, stock window from a good manufacturer, expect to pay $200-$500 for each unit.

Source: “Energy Efficiency: Dodging Drafts, Saving Dollars on Heating and Cooling” from the Fall 2006 issue of Smart Choices for Your Home.

Though granite countertops are certainly popular today in high-end kitchen remodels, a lot of people are choosing alternatives such as metals. Stainless steel, zinc, and copper are examples.

Some of the positive traits of metal countertops are that they are heat proof, easy to care for, and can support integrated (matching) sinks. Stainless steel is impervious to acids and oils, while copper and zinc develop a warm patina over time, feeling less sterile than steel.

Some of the downsides are that metal can scratch easily (though the marks aren’t easily noticeable with a random-grade finish), and stainless steel can look a little too industrial for some people’s tastes.

At $75-$150 per square foot installed, metal countertops are comparable to granite and other high-end materials.