Luxury Housing Trends & Home Improvement Ideas

With houses built so close together these days, a privacy fence is often desirable so you can enjoy your yard without tripping over the neighbors. While six-foot (or taller) wooden fences can do the job, they can also block out a lot of natural light, and in some cases you don’t need something quite so dense to create the feeling privacy.

The trellis-top lattice on top of this bamboo fence gives this homeowner enough privacy to create a serene backyard oasis while still allowing through light.

Pre-built bamboo fence panels make installation fairly painless, and the fast-growing material is considered by many to be more eco-friendly than wood, especially if the bamboo is grown and harvested locally.

This particular fence is made from materials available at Master Garden Products.

Looking for a doghouse that’s cool for Fido in the summer and warm in the winter? Try one that installs underground and takes advantage of the earth’s insulation.

The DogEden doghouse is supposed to appeal to a dog’s natural instincts to build dens in the ground. It also features 20% recycled materials, a built-in tie out, and self-heating and cooling (according to the site, when it is a cold -2 F/-18 C outside, it’ll be a comfortable 48 F/ 9 C inside, and when it’s a hot 105 F/41 C outside, it’ll be a cool 72 F/22C inside).

The underground dog house comes with a life time warranty, and there is no assembly required (of course, you’ll have to dig a hole to put it in!).

The DogEden house costs $400 and looks to be fairly indestructible. Of course, I’d never convince my dogs to move outside–they’d much prefer to make use of the climate controlled people house.

There are a lot of reasons to consider raised garden beds (I’m making a few myself this year, so I can keep the moles from pushing up mounds of dirt in the vegetable patch), and you don’t have to spend a lot of money to make them, especially if you’re good at salvaging usable materials from old projects. To make things easy though, you might consider a raised bed garden kit.

Typically made using cedar (which is known for holding up well to the elements) or long-lasting composites (comprised of recycled materials), the kits come with everything you need to assemble the frame of a bed quickly and easily.

Many systems even lock together so you don’t need nails or screws or any major tools to attach everything.

You can also get kits that go beyond the typical rectangles we tend to make for ourselves when we’re building raised beds from scratch. Woody’s Creative Woodworks has a number of ideas for creating patterns using different sizes and shapes of beds.

Prices for garden bed kits do run higher than if you simply buy the materials yourself, but if you prefer a no hassle way of getting your beds together, kits can be a great option.

A knee chair or “kneeling chair” is an alternative to your typical herman miller type chair. Instead of sitting with your feet on the floor and your back against a backrest, your shins share some of the burden, and you work in a somewhat different position.

While these are often called knee chairs, you’re not really resting against your knees against anything (which wouldn’t be that comfortable for most of us). Rather your shins share the weight with your rump, altering the usual sitting position.

I have a hard time imaging this chair being that comfortable for extended periods of time, but I know some people like them. A knee chair has some ergonomic benefits as well in that it’s supposed to encourage a more correct postural position in the lower back.

You can pick up knee chairs for $100-$200 at Amazon:

Ergonomic Kneeling Posture Office Chairs

There are a lot of options when it comes to patio materials. We’ve looked at interestingly shaped concrete patio stones, slate patio tiles, and eco-rubber pavers to name a few. Another material worth checking out is sandstone.

This sandstone circle patio pattern offers a nice alternative to angular square and rectangle options.

The circles come as kits you can put together yourself if you have DIY inclinations. Each features a center piece and three rows of ring pieces. You can also get a “squaring off kit” if you don’t want an entirely circular patio. Integrate one or more circles into a larger space or make one stand alone for a small seating area.

The sandstone pieces are available in a number of natural colors such as light gray, golden leaf, and mint. Available at Sandstone World.

It’s no secret that eco-friendly or “green” homes have become quite popular, even in the luxury housing market. And some of the most energy efficient homes are the ones set all or partially in the ground.

This lets you take advantage of the year-around stable temperatures found in the earth. In the summer, the cool ground means there’s little need for air conditioning and in the winter, the earth insulates your home, keeping it naturally warmer than chilly temperatures outside.

You don’t have to move into a cave to take advantage of the earth’s insulating capacities, but you could…

As I write this, The Cave House in Bisbee, Arizona, is for sale. The price tag? Just under $2 million, but here’s what you get:

“Tucked away in a canyon in the Mule Mountains just outside of Bisbee, Arizona this fantastic property offers a unique cave house in a wonderful natural setting. At 5300′ elevation the cave house, guest house, and various outbuildings make an ideal retreat. A natural creek flows through the property and has lovely swimming pools with rock patios. The area attracts birders from around the world and is perfect for wildlife viewing. Chulo, another word for coatimundi have been viewed on the property. The land, approximately 45 acres, is home to over 79 species of birds, 113 species of butterflies, ringtail cats, foxes, skunks, deer, squirrels, lizards, frogs and snakes just to name a few.”

And how is the cave house green?

It has “a year round supply of spring water. There are no heating or cooling bills and no water bills. The home is passive solor with thermal (land mass) temperature control.”

Alas, I’m just a bit shy of having the down payment or I’d make an offer myself!

If you work from home and you’re tired of those metal filing cabinets that dent, jam, and just aren’t that attractive (especially for a home office), then wood is another option.  And if you take a peek at the picture below, you’ll see I’m not talking about some cheap plywood thing from the local office store (you know, the kind that takes several hours and a lot of angst to assemble).

This handcrafted wooden filing cabinet bench is designed to hold four feet of files (as much as a two-drawer filing cabinet) laterally, and it gives you a little extra seating in a pinch too.

(Of course, if you’re a clutter bug–not that I’d know anything about this–and you’d end up stacking books and other items high on the top of the bench lid then this setup might not be that convenient).

The solid wood cabinet benches are made by a Las Vegas woodworker with a shop on Etsy, and the cost is $2,200.

It sounds like you can have the benches customized and choose your preferred wood too.

We’ve talked before about the best space heater for any given location in your home, shop, garage, etc., but we didn’t talk much about infrared heaters.  If you’d like to warm up your room without spending a lot of extra money on energy, this may be an option.

Infrared heat works similar to the radio waves the sun gives off to heat a person’s body when they are outside on a clear day.  Infrared heaters, such as the ones by SunHeat, use radio waves to heat an internal copper element, and then a fan blows air over the hot copper to redistribute the heat into the room.

An infrared zone heater is supposed to save up to 50% over electric forced air heating systems, and it can warm up to a 1,000 square foot space, from floor to ceiling.

Infrared zone heaters don’t dry out the air or release chemicals or pollutants.  They are safe to use even in rooms where you wouldn’t typically put a space heater (such as a bathroom).

Not all birds go south for the winter, and you can keep them coming to your yard with a bird feeder and a bird bath.  But, wait, if your bird bath is covered with snow and ice, it won’t make a very appealing jacuzzi for your feathered visitors.

No doubt you need a “bird bath ice eliminator.”

“The Ice Eliminator birdbath deicer safely maintains open water in birdbaths to below 20 degrees Fahrenheit, providing year-round wild bird activity in your backyard.”

The device features a durable enamel finish that you can spray paint to match your bird bath.  Plug it into an outdoor outlet, and let it keep the water from freezing.  The ice melter uses 50 watts of energy and is thermostatically controlled.  It’s supposed to be safe to use even in plastic birdbaths.

$37 at the Giving Spirit

If you want to save energy this year–and you live in a climate that’s less damp than mine–you could cut out the clothes dryer and let your garments dry outside.  Even an energy saving dryer is a pretty big power suck, so using the sun and the wind can certainly lower your utility bill.

You don’t have to manually string lines up all over your house; just pick up an outdoor clothes drying rack.

The Whitney Design 3000 30-Line Outdoor Parallel-Style Clothes Dryer with Aluminum Arms (aside from having a very long name) makes efficient use of space, so even if you’ve got a small yard, you can dry your clothes outside.

And saving energy may not be the only perk:

“The benefits of air drying clothes are many–fabrics last longer, energy bills run lower, and clothes and sheets naturally smell better when hung outside–not to mention the health benefits of spending a few minutes outdoors in the sunshine.”

Pick up this unit for less than $70 at Amazon:

Whitney Outdoor Clothes Dryer