Luxury Housing Trends & Home Improvement Ideas

If you have kids and/or pets, you know how hard it can be to keep your home looking good. That brilliant new chaise lounge may be the perfect complement to your decor now, but wait until the first Kool-Aid stain... Crypton "Super Fabric" may be the answer. It's made to resist stains, odors, mildew, water and hard treatment of all sorts. Cleaning magic markers, spaghetti, Kool-Aid and other infamous stains are made simple. It comes in numerous styles, so there's no need to worry about blah furniture. Crypton fabric costs about $5 more per yard than other fabrics, but it may be worth it in the long run. Crypton Fabric

Looking for environmentally conscious furniture? Or furniture makers that use recyled materials or perhaps contribute some of their earnings to eco-friendly causes? Treehugger, a blog that follows modern yet ecologically responsible living, has entries on a number of furniture makers that are doing their part to help the Earth. Visit this post on Re-Modern, a furniture designer "with integrity" or check out these bucket pendant lamps, made out of--you guessed it--recylced bucket liners. Also in the light category are these table lamps made from recycled jars. The whole site is a great resource and worth browsing when you have the time.

Customization of furniture is becoming more popular these days. With printing technology, vendors can offer wallpaper, rugs, and kitchen backsplashes with pictures of the kids or whatever you desire on them, but furniture is being customized, too. While custom designed pieces may still be expensive when commissioned, now more homeowners are realizing they can do much of the work themselves. "Meet the hottest new interior designer: the American homeowner. Spurred by the Internet's growing ranks of décor vendors and weary of canned looks pushed by big retailers, would-be decorators are commissioning their own curtain fabrics, designing their own bathroom tiles -- even ordering rugs emblazoned with images of the family dog." From Customization Movement Hits Home Furnishings

We've looked at lamps made out of stone, but how about lamps made out of salt? Chi Evolution makes both lamps and candles using Himalayan crystallized salt aged over 250 million years. ChiEvolution

Let's face it, if you're a true wine enthusiast, and you own your own home, you've probably built a wine cellar or at least installed a wine refrigerator, but if you haven't reached that point yet (give it time), you may be considering a wine rack. If space is at a premium, you might be interested in a wine tube. Sounds weird, but as they say, sometimes less is more. The Kim Almsig wine tube featured below holds 12 bottles and allows you to see all the labels without pulling each individual bottle out of a rack. Wall mounting makes access easy while the slim profile keeps your prized bottles from getting in the way. If you want something a little more sophisticaed, The Wine Enthusiast sells a number of Wine racks and cooling systems.

Philippe Starck, considered by some as "the world's leading exponent of expressionist architecture," working with Oregon Scientific has created a "smart clock." The clock tells time, air pressure, temperature, and humidity, not to mention showing off the phase of the moon. The clocks come in small, medium, and large sizes with red, yellow, and gray as color options for the clock face. Smart Clock

Das Art combines stone sculptures with lighting elements. The hard carved stones are translucent and lit from within by electric light or a candle. The illuminated stone sculptures "connect you to your environment, and ultimately to the universe, in a contemporary and timeless way." Or they just look neat. Stone Lights at Das Art