Luxury Housing Trends & Home Improvement Ideas

Finding a way to bring the outdoors inside makes life more interesting, especially on those dreary days when you don’t want to step outdoors. With a few accessories and home accents, you liven up your home with nature.

Anthropologie has several new items including bedding, sheets and curtains, and there are now three fresh looking rugs available too. The Sweet as Honey Rug looks like a bunch of honeycombs, and the Budding Birch Rug has a spring feel. There is also a Velvet Moss Rug, which looks somewhat like camouflage with dark shades of brown and green, so it has a more masculine presence.

These three rugs are crafted from New Zealand wool, and they have a sturdy cotton backing. As for care, these pieces would have to be professionally cleaned, but they’re sure to bring a natural ambiance to your home.

Are you tired of the typical carpet, hardwood and linoleum floors in your home? These traditional styles can become boring over time, but it doesn’t mean that you have to spend money ripping them up in order to get the look you desire.

Flor has various designs and textures of square tile flooring, which can be pieced together to create amazing rugs for underneath your dining room table, or you can go bigger and do an entire room with it. If you already have wood or linoleum flooring, you can put an “area rug” of Flor tiles on it to enhance the space.

Flor’s new Haute Stuff makes a three-dimensional statement, and it also involves two different textures. Below its shown in lime green, which is sure to please.

When you turn a basement or even a garage into a living space, the concrete floor can pose an issue for your comfort. For example, if you add an extra kitchen to the basement that you or a family member is going to use regularly, the floor is probably going to be hard on their feet even if you put another flooring surface over the concrete. Fortunately, there is an easy way to calm those tired dogs.

GelPro floor mats come in a variety of designs and sizes including textures such as basketweave, trellis, wicker, flora, cordoba, ostrich, striated, crocodile and rattlesnake. These mats are designed to relieve lower back pain and reduce fatigue in the body.

The Ostrich in Atlantic blue is a rich looking floor mat that would look great in a kitchen. Even if you just get a smaller mat for in front of the sink, it will increase the comfort.

If you’re a beer fan, you may appreciate wood flooring from a company that celebrates the Oktoberfest vibe by naming its stains after various lagers.

Shamrock Plank Flooring has three hand-scraped hickory offerings with colors named after their favorite beverages: “Just as there is more to crafting the perfect German beer than barley & hops, there is more to crafting a stunning hardwood floor than wood and stain. Shamrock Plank Flooring presents the German Gasthaus Series, featuring heavily hand scraped hickory in three elegant colors: Pilsner, Maibock and Dunkel.”

Hand-scraped floors feel lived in from the moment you lay them, offering a warmth that many prefer to regular hardwood flooring. The solid hickory planks can be nailed or glued down and is available in 4″ or 5″ wide planks.

Sitting beside a fire can be a relaxing experience, and if you have one in your bedroom, you probably love to use it as much as you can. However, while your resting your eyes, those hot embers can fly out of the fireplace and land right on your carpeting where it can spark a fire. To prevent a fire and protect your rug from burn marks, a hearth rug will help you play it safe.

The Guardian Fiberglass Hearth Rug is a half moon shaped and measured 4′. It comes in brown, charcoal or tan, and it will protect your floor from sparks and embers. This particular hearth rug is resistant to up to 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit of heat.

Even if you have tile floors, the rug has a vinyl backing to keep it in place.

Oriental rugs are a home staple that can bring your decor together and complete the look of a room.

Where can you put an oriental rug?

Since there are so many shapes (rectangle, circular, narrow rectangle, etc.), you can put one almost anywhere including in a hallway, under the dining room table and in front of the entryway. The colors and patterns in these rugs can enhance the formality of a room too.

The Momeni Persian Heritage Sauri in burgundy is made from 100 percent New Zealand wool. It has hand-serged edges, and it’s machine-made and power-loomed. Its dimensions are 8.6 x 11.6 ft. or you can get it in 9.6 x 13.6 ft.

When you have beautiful wood or tile floors, you’re not going to want to cover it up with carpet. However, it’s nice to have some soft cushion for your feet to rest on when you’re sitting in the chair or walking around the living room area. A unique way to incorporate a little bit of carpet into a room is to try FLOR.

FLOR has several different carpet tile designs that look like art that should be on your wall. The La Fonda del Sol features folk art-inspired suns in an array of colors and graphics. This carpet design will bring attention to the room and definitely compliment more simplistic furniture and decor.

The tiles are 19.7” x 19.7” and this rug set comes in a set of six tile rugs. A friendly rug design such as this one would be great for a home office too, because it’s so bright and cheery.

If you’re a wine enthusiast, why stop at drinking the stuff? You can remodel your home to enjoy hardwood floors made from reclaimed barrels and tanks.

The Wine Infusion line of flooring from Fontenay is one of several options from the company, which collects barrel heads to mill into different looks for their hand-finished, hand-distressed custom floors. “The Cooperage represents the outside of the barrel head with all its patina, cooper’s stamps and special markings. The Wine Infusion represents the inside of the barrel and retains the natural stain from the color of the wine. The Stave, our newest product, displays the outer sides of the barrel where the hoops have been removed.”

The first picture below is of the Wine Infusion flooring, and the second features the Stave floor. Browse the company’s site for more.

Flooring can be expensive so why buy something that you’re not going to love in a couple years? The new modular floorcovering called FLOR provides you with so many options that it will boggle your mind. There are tons of tiles to choose from, and the best part is that you can mix and match them. If you’re going to pay the money for new flooring, shouldn’t you get exactly what you want?

The Fuzzy Button Rug Kit in Go Fetch Green is $59.99 for a four tile rug. As shown in the picture, circular rugs such as this would accent an entryway or hallway. This kit also comes in Roll Over Raspberry, Uh Oh Orange and Tin Tin Teal. The tiles are 19.7” x 19.7” and each rug is one individual circle.

If you have wood floors, you can use FLOR to spice up the space and incorporate carpeting just underneath couches and tables. They even have a Martha Stewart collection you should check out.

Wood is a handsome flooring material, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a hardwood floor that isn’t attractive, but if you want to go for something truly unique, you might try something beyond simple planks or boards.

These parquet blocks from LV Wood Floors are made from exotic Jatoba wood. Adding to the uniqueness is the leather inset into each square block.

The leather inserts are one of many options the company offers–you can have your parquet flooring customized to feature multiple species of wood in each block, marble inserts, or other materials. The company also offers a line of flooring that uses reclaimed woods (everything from timbers from old buildings to horse fencing), so browse their site for ideas for your home.