Luxury Housing Trends & Home Improvement Ideas

Red cedar siding makes for a handsome house, but are there other benefits to using the material?

Yup.

You might not think of wood as an eco-friendly choice (cutting down trees is evil, isn’t it?), but according to Greening Your Home, “few materials go from raw natural resources to finished products with fewer steps than cedar.”

The book goes on to point out that “production of wood products takes up roughly four percent of the energy used in making building materials.” And of course trees can be–and are being–replanted and grown again.

Other benefits of red cedar siding are that the material is “dimensionally stable,” meaning it rarely shrinks, swells, or warps, making it popular even in damp climates such as the Pacific Northwest (a cedar sided house blends nicely with all our evergreens).

The downside to cedar is that it’s more expensive than treated lumber and many other siding materials. Also, you need to apply a surface finish unless you want your siding to age to its natural silver gray color.

While an aluminum stick supporting a mailbox can be perfectly functional, that’s about all it is.  If you’d like to add curb appeal (or at least mailbox appeal), try a decorative mailbox post.

If you have a green thumb, a mailbox post with a planter could add some life to your curb.

The Westbrook Plus Post from Mayne is functional as well as decorative.  It requires no maintenance, painting, staining, etc. and has a 15-year warranty.

The little planter in the back is perfect for a couple of flowers (and if you don’t have the gardening gene, you could always cheat with fake plants).

Available in black, clay, granite, and white at Seattle Luxe ($160)

When it gets rainy, outdoor steps can be treacherous. Adding stair treads is a simple fix.

These decorative scroll stair treads are designed to look like wrought iron, but they are actually made from durable and weather-resistant rubber. Their open-weave design allows water to pass through, and the textured top surface keeps you from slipping when the weather is rainy (they may help with ice too). Simply hose them off to clean them.

The stair treads come in sets of 2 for $10, or pick up a double set (four total) for $18.50

At Harriet Carter

Still using that bland boring mailbox that came with your house? In past posts, we’ve looked at a lot of alternative options:

• A pivoting mailbox that can survive being whacked by a snowplow

• A mailbox with a solar-powered lighthouse on top
• A historic wall-mounted mailbox
• … and don’t forget the mailbox with the giant base for weeks of mail storage

Just in case you didn’t see your dream mailbox in that list, here’s another one:

These personalized copper mailboxes are from Roland’s Housewarming Gifts. The regulation medium size steel mailboxes are wrapped with hand-hammered copper.

You can get your address or family name (up to 18 characters) on the bottom, underneath one of several available designs such as pheasants, horses, trees, fish, and sailboats.

A flagstone walkway leading up to your house can add great curb appeal, but it’s pretty expensive to install. If you’d like the look of flagstone and are looking for a slightly less costly way to achieve it, check out these stamped concrete walkways.

Stamped concrete is the made by pressing rubber stamps into freshly poured (sometimes colored as well) concrete. The resulting imprints are deeper than if you simply stenciled. You can have any shape you want, but it’s popular to see walkways that mimic the look (and even color) of brick or in this case flagstone.

The stamped concrete walkway shown here is the work of Concrete Alternatives in Vermont.

If you don’t currently have gutter guards, it may be something to consider if you’re regularly up on the roof unclogging the gutters. Fall is a particularly hard time for those who live near trees.

These gutter guards from Leaf Solution are made from stainless steel micro mesh, which is supposed to keep anything larger than a grain of sand from getting into the gutter while allowing water to permeate through and run off the roof.

The gutter guards can be installed on new or old gutter systems. Installation consists of the mesh being slipped under roof shingles and attached to the gutter lip–no glue is involved.

The Leaf Solution guards work with all rooflines (metal, slate, composite shingle, or cedar) though a custom roof with built-in gutters won’t be able to accommodate the system.

http://leafsolution.com/

If it’s time to replace your roof, you have quite a few options when it comes to materials. One you might not have considered before is recycled rubber roofing.

This eco-friendly material can be colored and molded into different shapes, so you can have anything from cedar shingle look-a-likes to “slate” roofing.

Looks aside, there are other reasons to consider rubber. The rubber roof tiles shown here are from EuroSlate, and they are “designed to overcome extreme weather impact and temperature variances that cause curling, splitting, cracking and rotting, associated with other roofing systems.” Also, the material features high insulating properties, so it is an energy efficient choice too.

In addition, rubber is “maintenance free,” impact resistant, and lightweight (under four pounds per square foot).

Check out the EuroSlate site for more information.

If you live in a climate that sees extremely cold winters, that weather can take a hefty toll on landscaping features such as stone or brick patios, retaining walls, walkways, and steps. Exposed to damaging freeze and thaw cycles, these structures can be vulnerable when built with traditional mortar methods.

An alternative is dry stone walling, which is building without mortar. Just about any stone can be used, and the resulting patios and structures stand up well under extreme weather conditions.

“Well-built dry stone walls do not dominate a landscape, they become a sympathetic part of it. These are not merely narrow stones loosely stacked without mortar, but tightly-fitted parts of a whole. The result is a structurally stable mass which can move with the earth, adapting as required without falling down. These walls can reach a height of five or six feet, and be two or three feet thick at their base.” ~ Whistling Dwarf Stone Work in Canada

If you live in a rural area, you might not have streetlights to brighten the neighborhood at night. While that makes for some great star viewing, it can be a bit dark coming home after work. If you’re tired of groping your way to your mailbox on winter evenings, then here’s an idea:

A mailbox with a solar lamp on top.

Actually, this mailbox is on the fancy side and has a whole solar lighthouse on top. The lamp charges during the day and will give off light for hours after the sun goes down.

Be warned: the “Tuckerton Lighthouse Mailbox” may give your neighbors mailbox envy.

Featuring pine siding and zinc plated steel hardware, the box costs $399 at the Cedar Store.

If you’re tired of those pesky winter storms coming through and ripping your mailbox off its post (or maybe the neighborhood kids like to throw stones at it), then maybe it’s time for something a touch more durable. A “gladiator” mailbox perhaps.

This box has a diamond ribbed reinforced plate‐steel shell, a “weather barrier door,” and a weather-resistant, kiln-baked, gloss black powder coated finish designed to provide superior protection against the elements (and it can probably give those rock-throwing kids a challenge too).

In addition, a precision-fit channel door keeps moisture out, and magnetic catches keep the door secure even during wind storms. Even the reinforced spear-shaped steel flag is heavy duty.

All yours for a mere $169 from Mahvelous Mailboxes.