Luxury Housing Trends & Home Improvement Ideas

If you’re remodeling the bathroom and looking for a cool shower stall, this contemporary model from Bmood might be a good fit.

The compact unit is designed for space-saving corner or center-wall installations. The two curving walls, which meet in the middle, are actually swivel doors that rotate around metal pins connected to the wall. The walls/doors are made from your choice of clear glass or Plexiglass and come in just about any color you can imagine.

With a corner shower stall like this, you might just be able to get the desired 5-pieces master en suite, even in a tighter bathroom space. And if nothing else, guests will definitely oh and ah at those snazzy swivel doors.

Bmood

When you think of tile mosaics, you may think of images and patterns that have to be custom installed by an artist who comes to your home to do the work from scratch. While you can go this route, you can also find colorful mosaics made from glass tiles that are attached to square sheets. You install them on the walls in a repeating pattern, which gives you a finished look that’s as vibrant as many custom jobs. Also, if you don’t mind a do-it-yourself project, you can easily lay the tiles on your own.

The wall shown here was done with tiles sheets from the Saix Fantastix line from Hakatai Enterprises. The sheets have dimensions of 12.875″ x 12.875″, and there are 26 designs to choose from in this line of “hand-cut, hand-aligned and exquisitely stylish glass mosaic repeating patterns.”

Hakatai

If you dig the idea of a stainless steel kitchen (from appliances to countertops to stainless steel cabinets to… well, maybe not the floor), but feel that all that gray is a bit too cold, you could soften the look with something like these frosted glass cabinet doors, which are inset in a stainless steel frame.

Granted, the kitchen pictured here, with the black granite countertops and white walls is still pretty sleek and cool, but with the glass inserts, the end result isn’t quite as industrial as the professional-chef style kitchens–a look that not everybody is going to love. Also, you could add color to the glass inserts if you wanted to move away from the homogeneous style here.

Picture from Stainless Steel Kitchens

If you’re looking for appropriate floor tiles for an indoor pool area, or perhaps you just want a little whimsy for a bathroom, then check out the Beach Series from Imagine Tile:

“The Beach Series consists of eight tiles, four of purposely varying sand and four of sand with accent shells. Beach Sand creates the feeling of a broad expanse of a sandy beach while Beach Shells adds an even more realistic touch when randomly placed in a field of Beach Sand. Beach Shells can also be used to highlight a room feature or guide foot traffic.”

You can get either pattern in 8″ x 8″ or 12″ x 12″ sizes and with an abrasive or standard finish. (The rougher finishes are smart for pool decks or anywhere you’re likely to be walking on the tiles wet and barefoot.)

Imagine Tile

Eco-friendly “green” countertops aren’t all that new (we’ve looked at Paperstone’s paper countertops as well as some by Richlite), but I still find the idea of kitchen counters made out of recycled paper novel and interesting. Of all the materials you wouldn’t think could stand up to hot pains, moisture, stains, and butcher knives, paper would likely top the list, but there are several companies out there using paper and cardboard as a key ingredient in countertops that are durable enough to stand up to the test of time (and your family).

As far as prices go, expect these to be comparable to other high-end countertop materials. Shetka Stone, maker of the counters shown here, says their product is priced between Granite and Corian.

The best part about countertops made from paper? When you do decide it’s time to remodel again (hopefully far down the line), these suckers can go right in the recycling bin, so there’s no landfill waste.

From Shetka Stone