Luxury Housing Trends & Home Improvement Ideas

Let’s be blunt: cleaning sucks. Nobody likes to do it, especially me. That’s why I eyeball these robotic vacuums and scrubbers, like the Roomba Scooba, with interest. This month’s issue of Consumer Review wasn’t too keen on the automatic floor scrubbing machine though. There were aspects they liked, but they didn’t think the overall value was there.

“Scooba covered most of the floor, 83 percent, but had trouble with corners and edges. It didn’t leave the floor slippery. Scooba and the mop easily wiped up coffee, grape juice, and tea stains, but the mop was better with stubborn stains (crayon, shoe polish). Scooba’s tank of solution lasted 50 minutes, and it was less noisy than an upright vacuum. At-home testers found it fine with most light dirt, but said it didn’t remove heavier accumulations and wouldn’t fit around the toilet, leaving them to mop the bathrooms.”

Overall, it doesn’t sound too bad to me, but I suppose the $400 price tag is a bit high for a just-okay product.

You’re not still opening your trashcan lid for yourself are you? That’s so 20th Century. Touchless garbage cans are battery operated, so they can lift the lid when your hand or garbage approaches (within six inches). A built in “smart chip” monitors an infrared sensor, which tells the can when to open. The 13 gallon can is available from Amazon for $100: Stainless Steel Touchless Trashcan

By now you’ve probably heard of the Roomba–the automated vacuuming robot that bounces around the carpet, sucking up dirt while you loungue on the sofa. The compact design lets it cruise under beds, coffee tables, and other hard-to-reach spots. It adjusts automatically to go between carpets and hardwood floors or linoleum. The latest upgrade to iRobot’s popular vacuum is the “Roomba Scheduler.” Now, you can program the unit to clean while you’re away from home at a set time every day. Once it’s done, the Roomba will return to its home base in order to charge. The Roomba Scheduler is available online from Amazon for $330: Roomba 4230 Remote Scheduler Robotic Vacuum

If you have kids or dogs and carpets, it’s a foregone conclusion, you’ll be dealing with the occasional stain. I saw the Bissell 1200B SpotBot–a compact home carpet cleaner–on the Home and Garden Channel the other day and decided to check it out since they spoke well of the machine, and its compactness attracted me (if you’ve ever rented the gigantic carpet cleaners from the grocery story, you know why a small one is appealing).

The Bissell cleaner has two modes: hands-free (I like the sound of that) and manual. The company says that in the hands-free mode, you can just fill the tank with water, flip it on, and walk away. The SpotBot is supposed to be able to take care of both new and old marks on the carpet, such as coffee, juice, red wine, and pet stains.

The Bissell carpet cleaner is available via Amazon.com where they have a video so you can watch it in action. Perhaps more importantly, there are a number of reviews and the overall consensus is that it’s a good machine. The price is $150 (and it was on sale when I checked): Bissell 1200B SpotBot

The Dirt Devil Broom Vacuum is the latest in sweeping technology, an alternative to the SweepEze Electronic Vacuuming Dustpan. The four pound combination broom and vacuum is a colorful cordless device that replaces your typical broom and dustpan. Just dust as normal, then push the foot switch and the vacuum sucks up the dirt. It’s available in red, lemon, cobalt blue, tangerine, white, brushed chrome, black, and granny smith green. The MSRP is $49.99.

http://www.dirtdevil.com

Technology is creeping into the house from all sides, and it’s even changing the way we clean. The Westinghouse SweepEze Vacuuming Dustpan uses a 600 watt vacuum motor to suck up dust and debris that you sweep into its range. An infrared sensor tells it when to turn on, so it’s always ready. The SweepEze is available in dark gray or beige and can be purchased via the web for about $60: SweepEze Electronic Dustpan

Central vacuum systems are among the latest luxury upgrades for homeowners who don’t have time to spend hours cleaning. They can be installed in any home, new or old. There are numerous tools and attachments available for them, so they can handle everything from loose pet hair to dirt on window screens.

Central vacuum systems consist of:

• a hose, usually about 30 feet long
• tools that attach to said hose
• wall inlets the hose connects to
• a network of plastic tubes for transporting the sucked up dirt
• a receptacle that stores the dirt until it’s dumped

(more…)

It’s hard to get excited about cleaning windows (and if you’re lucky, you can afford to hire someone else to do it), but the Leifheit Hand Held Window Washing Wonder is designed to take some of the drudgery out of the task. The tool, which is half aqueegee half pressure washer, has an integrated detergent tank and a micro-fiber cleaning pad. It can wipe away smudges or take care of the whole window. The only thing you need to figure out is how to talk the kids into doing it for you.

http://www.leifheitusa.com/

The Dyson Ball Vacuum Cleaner has been out for a while in the UK but is little known in the US. The vacuum tracks on a ball instead of wheels. This design is supposed to allow greater maneuverability around furniture and obstacles, making vacuuming easier and more effective. It also uses Dyson’s “patented RootCyclone technology, a centrifugal force suction that is always constant, unlike other vacuums that can lose up to 50 percent suction while operating.” The list price for the Ball Vacuum in the US is about $720, though you can find it at Amazon for under $600: Dyson Ball Vacuum (The reviews over there are all pretty favorable, so it might just be a product that lives up to its claims.)

http://www.dyson.com/