Luxury Housing Trends & Home Improvement Ideas

They say that aerating your grass (AKA pushing a rod into the earth or coring a piece from it) is the secret weapon that can give you a beautiful lawn. The process allows oxygen, water, and fertilizers and nutrients to more easily get to the root system.

But aerating your whole lawn is quite a chore, especially if you own a large piece of land. You either need to buy or rent a power lawn aerator or get some of those funky shoes with the spikes on the bottom and do some laps around your yard. But wait, here’s another option…

If you’ve got a riding lawn mower, you can hook up the Mow-Aerator. This system consists of a “simple set of brackets and 1.5 inch spikes that attaches to a riding and/or push lawn mower’s tires. As you mow the lawn, the spikes do the work of aerating supplying the soil with air helping water and fertilizer move into the root zone.”

Get the grass mowed and aerated at the same time. Sounds like a way to shorten your weekend work load.

Mow-Aerator. Price: $119.

If you’re tired of a cutting board that moves all over the counter when you get a little vigorous with your slicing and dicing, then this one may work better for you.

The walnut cutting board from Blanco America features a little overhang that hooks onto the side of the counter top. You can still slide the board from side to side, but it won’t get away from you as easily. In addition, juice channels keep runny things from oozing over the edge.

Hey, it’s not high tech stuff, but sometimes it’s the little things that make a kitchen appliance stand out.

http://www.blancoamerica.com

Ok, I just spent entirely too much time designing my dream deck online. Eco Woods California sells “eco deck tiles,” which can be snapped into place on top of concrete or another flat surface, in order to give you a pretty wood deck. Like many other snap-together tile products, these don’t require any screws, nails, or glue, so you don’t have to be a professional (or even a particularly talented DIY type) to create a pretty new deck.

To make sure you get the number and style of deck tiles you need, you’ll want to check out the company’s deck design page. Enter in the size of your deck, and you’re ready to start clicking a design into place.

Since there are several design choices to choose from, you can get something more interesting than the usual straight-wood-boards deck.

I think I may have found the perfect shower for a friend of mine who suffers from seasonal affective disorder (AKA SAD or the “winter blues”). She’s got a little light book she uses in the winter when the days are dark and short. What she obviously needs is Bain Ultra’s Temazkal.

This luxury shower offers thermotherapy (think sauna), aromatherapy (”this form of low-impact therapy uses the pure essences of aromatic plants, flowers and resins to stimulate the skin and sense of smell and help re-establish harmony between the body and mind”), and light therapy too.

If you’re a SAD sufferer, imagine being totally immersed in warmth and light at the beginning of the day. Sounds like a good way to fight off those winter blues or, if you do night shift work, trick your body into thinking your hours are normal.

Of course, this is a luxury shower, with prices starting at $8,999, so I won’t be able to pick it up for my friend for Christmas, but if you’re looking to do a completely sybaritic bathroom remodel, then this is the shower for you.

More information at BainUltra

There are a lot of different types of siding you can choose for your house, but there’s nothing like stone to suggest wealth, history, and lasting power. You don’t have to build your walls of solid stone to get that look either. The house in the picture here is sporting a limestone veneer from Eldorado Stone.

The company stresses that believability is important, so they work to make their veneers look like actual stone walls, even though it’s a lot less hassle (and money) to install them: “Eldorado’s architectural stone veneer is lighter weight, designed to adhere easily to a variety of structurally sound surfaces, and is capable of installations that would normally be very difficult and costly to achieve with natural stone.”

http://www.eldoradostone.com

If you’re looking to do something a little exotic on one of the walls in your home, check out these tiles from Metaphore Bronze. This 24″ x 12″ mural features a relief of bamboo, perfect for the tropical feel in your bathroom. You can also get 4″ x 4″ bronze squares that give you textured bamboo stalks, or there are a couple of border options too.

A little more elegant than actual bamboo (and not prone to rot, warp, or mold like the real deal would in the bathroom), the bronze tiles are a way to add a touch of the exotic to your home.

http://www.metaphorbronze.com

If you live in an area prone to hurricanes or other fierce storms, nobody has to tell you how important it is to build your home to stand up to nature. That includes windows, doors, and garage doors too.

Special windloaded garage doors are reinforced to handle 100mph+ gusts. You might think that something that strong has to look like it belongs in a bunker, but it’s still possible to find handsome garage doors that are windloaded for hurricanes.

The hand-crafted wooden Vermilion doors shown here are from Raynor Garage Doors, and they have been “subjected to stringent testing, including high pressure and impact-resistance tests, to ensure that your Raynor door will protect your home and property from even the fiercest winds.”

Raynor

I’m one of those lazy chefs who brings home a lot of take-out, so I don’t use can openers very often. In fact, I didn’t have one for several months and barely noticed the loss, but my mom sent me her famous chili recipe, and it called for several cans of things. I hopped online to look for a can opener and found the OXO “Smooth Edge” can opener at Amazon.

At $20, it was as expensive as many of the countertop electric can openers, but I figured OXO is known for being a good brand, and since I don’t open cans that often, I didn’t want something cluttering up my counters. I ordered it through Amazon, and it arrived soon after.

I quickly found out that the OXO Smooth Edge doesn’t work quite like other hand can openers I’ve used in the past. No puncturing the top of the can and twisting your wrist out of the socket to move the tool around the lip. This can opener attaches to the side of the can, piercing the rim itself. (Fortunately, it comes with a little direction booklet with pictures of what to do, hah.)

It’s very easy to turn, and I almost thought it hadn’t worked at first. When I removed the can opener the can looked the same. Then I realized I could just lift off the lid. There were no sharp edges to cut yourself on as with most can openers, since the outside rim was still smooth. The top millimeter of the lid had simply been sliced off.

So all in all, the OXO Smooth Edge is a snap to use (less work than a traditional hand-held can opener) and it gives you a perfectly safe can lid to toss away. It’s a sturdy feeling piece of equipment, so I think the $20 price tag is fair.

If you’re interested, you can get your own online:

OXO Good Grips Smooth Edge Can Opener

If you enjoy decorating your home, you won’t want to stop with paint and window treatments. There are so many places you can add decorative elements, places you might not even have considered before. For instance, what’s covering your heat register vents?

Chances are it’s nothing special. If you’ve got hardwood floors and people are likely to notice things like the heat vents, then you can treat them as eye sores and hide them behind furniture, or you can spruce them up with their own decorative element.

Liz’s Antique Hardware has all sorts of interesting heat register grilles, many of them authentic to certain historical styles. You won’t feel the need to hide these babies from site. The one shown here is made from cast aluminum and costs $175.

http://www.lahardware.com

Whether you’re building a new home or putting a new roof on your existing house, it makes more and more sense these days to look into solar roofing. It’s easier than ever to install, and with today’s technology, you can save quite a bit on your energy bill, even in climates that aren’t known for lots of sunny days every year.

Today’s integrated solar roofing options can work right alongside your typical shingles. The modules are easy to install and can seamlessly interlock with standard wood or asphalt shingles. One module is the size equivalent of five standard concrete tiles.

Solar roofing modules are designed to absorb energy even under low-light conditions. Also, they are resistant to impact, moisture, and strong winds.

Examples include the 62-watt solar roof modules from Sharp Electronics. They cost $8 per installed watt.

http://solar.sharpusa.com