Luxury Housing Trends & Home Improvement Ideas

So, you’re looking to do your part for the environment by purchasing eco-friendly furniture for your home. A nice decision, but what are your options? Actually, there’s all sorts of stuff out there, often made from recycled materials or using reclaimed wood (which means taking boards from old barns, churches, etc. that have been torn down). Cork is also considered an eco-friendly material since the bark can be harvested without damaging the tree and it grows back in time. Bamboo grows to maturity quickly too.

So, if you’re looking for eco-friendly furniture, here’s a chair made from recycled cork and bamboo.

Made by Trevor O-Neil Design, the chair costs $1,200. Oh, and there’s a $5,800 sofa made from cork and birch, if you’re interested in having a common theme through all your living room furniture.

Cork Chair

Hearing protection is something that you might associate with professionals who are constantly working around noisy equipment, but if you are a homeowner who mows the lawn, runs a shop vacuum, or uses any sort of noisy power tools on a regular basis, some noise-canceling earmuffs or headphones are a smart investment. Even infrequent exposure to loud noises can cause hearing damage in the long run, so there’s no reason not to wear hearing protection while you mow the lawn or work with power tools (and every reason to wear it).

The Peltor Professional Noise Canceling Earmuffs shown here have received many positive reviews from folks at Amazon. At around $30, they’re not going to break the bank, but they are a wise investment in your future health. Just don’t forget to wear them once you buy them!

Peltor Professional Noise Canceling Earmuff

Autumn is officially here, and for most of us that means the season of falling leaves. Leaves were fun when you were a kid and you could rake them into a pile (or wait for dad to do it) and run and jump into them. As an adult, you probably appreciate them less, especially if you’re a homeowner and they’re jamming up your gutters.

Traditionally, fall means you’ve got to get the ladder out and clean those leaves out of your gutters yourself. Well, this year may be different. Enter the Looj, iRobot’s newest entry in the robotic cleaning market.

“Now you can avoid climbing and repositioning a ladder multiple times while juggling tools and over reaching from dangerous heights.”

You’ll still have to get the ladder out to position the Looj, but then the machine does the work. It’s supposed to clean a 60-foot section of gutter in 10 minutes. There’s a video on the company’s site:

iRobot

A fruit bowl makes a popular centerpiece, both because it gives you something to look at and also since having some apples or pears out in plain sight makes your family members more likely to choose the healthy snack over the chips in the cupboard (well, that’s the hope anyway). If you want your fruit ensemble to act as a decorative element, you may want to pick something a little more interesting than a plain old wicker basket or stainless steel bowl.

Something like Helena Schepens’ Fruit Vessel III perhaps.

You couldn’t exactly call it a fruit bowl, but perhaps a rocking chair for your pears. Of course, I’m not sure what you would do with grapes or bananas, but if you’re an apple or pear fan, the Fruit Vessel should work nicely. It’ll give the kids something to play with while they’re waiting for you to prepare a snack (just be wary of the potential for fruit being launched across the kitchen… I know I would have used this as a catapult as a youngster).

Helena Schepens via Crib Candy

Cleaning the inside of windows isn’t fun but cleaning the outsides is usually a real pain, especially if we’re talking about windows on the second story. You either have to get out the ladder or hire someone to do the task. Even ground-floor windows can be a pain, since you often have to step across beds of flowers or push through bushes. Well, these “swing and clean” windows from Alside offer an easier solution.

They have a pivot system that allows you to clean the outside of the windows from inside your home. “Each and every sash on a Swing & Clean window swings in for easy access to the inside glass surface, and the outside as well.”

The company promises their swing and clean windows are just as low maintenance and energy efficient as other types of windows.

Alside

I love working from home, but one of the downsides is the tendency for clutter to accumulate all over my home office. In particular, I’m always scribbling notes on papers and then losing those papers in the mess. Perhaps what I need is the “Tower of Clips” desk organizer.

“Is your desk covered in memos and business cards that have no place to call home? This clever clip tower keeps the clutter off your desk and in a handy vertical stack. Each clip easily springs open to clamp onto papers, photos and pens.”

Since it’s mostly vertical, it wouldn’t take up a lot of desk room. I’m sure I could turn it into a paper-bristling tree of notes before long, but at least I’d have a better shot of finding them.

If you’re in the same boat, you can pick up the organizer from Uncommon Goods for $35:

Tower of Clips

I’ve written before about how residential urinals are becoming more common, and I’ve also pointed you to a hide-away home urinal that disappears into the wall when you’re done using it, but this is the first time I’ve seen flower-shaped urinals. Maybe it’s because I’m a girl, and I don’t frequent the men’s room, but I can’t imagine they’re that common. After all, wouldn’t you feel a little, er, unmanly peeing into a flower?

If you disagree, you may want to check out this page. It has a whole bunch of pictures of urinals of different flowery varieties: “An Exhibit of Flower Shaped Urinals and other Nature Inspired Sculptures by San Francisco Artist, Clark Sorensen”

Why create flower-shaped urinals? Well, why not?

“Clark hopes that his urinals will be put to use in uniquely designed bathrooms around the world. He has a gorgeous Calla Lily urinal in his studio from a previous show that is plumbed and fully functioning.”