Luxury Housing Trends & Home Improvement Ideas

Movable translucent or glazed glass screens can open the space of a room in an instant. If you live in a ranch style home, folding screens can transform the way a room looks and feels. Most importantly, they can serve as dividers, so you can get multiple uses out of your larger rooms without closing them up too much.

Another glass option is glazed folding doors. Adding these to the back of your house can give you more of a connection with your backyard. Instead of the patio being separate, it can be more a part of your home.

NanaWall makes glazed folding doors, which are perfect for homes near the water. They have three types of glazed folding systems: wood, aluminum and aluminum clad.

So what is the difference between the screens and the doors? Glass folding screens can create a large visual space while glass folding doors can provide large exterior openings.

Adding little touches to the guest room can make your friends and family members feel more at home when they come to visit. If you have never tried out your guest room, this is the first step you should take.

Sleeping one or two nights in the guest room can give you ideas of where improvements can be made. For example, a mini kitchen with a small coffee maker, microwave and refrigerator stocked with beverages and snacks can ensure your guests have everything they need. It can be difficult to fall asleep when you’re away from home, but familiar items such as tea and cookies can help you settle in.

Other considerate touches include a private telephone, local phone book, full-length mirror, quality hangers in the closet, disposable cameras, the daily newspaper and books.

Details like this can make longer stays more enjoyable and relaxed, so your guests don’t feel like they need to rush back home.

If you’re building your own house or renovating an existing one, the location of the stairs can have a lot of influence on what you do with them. If the stairs lead up from the great room or a foyer at the front door, a lot of people are going to see them (assuming you have visitors come over from time to time), so the stairs are a great opportunity to make a grand first impression. Instead of choosing basic, bland railings and balusters, you could try furniture-quality wood or wrought iron with intricate designs integrated into each baluster.

Shown here is the Bergamo balusters and Grand newels (those are the center posts at the bottom of the stair case, for those who aren’t up on the lingo) from Moulding Associates, Inc, a company that specializes in wooden door designs, stair parts, architectural accents, and decorative millwork items. They have quite a few pictures on their site if you’re looking for ideas for your own stairs.

http://www.maidoors.com

It’s hard to beat the look of custom-installed stair railings, especially if your staircase is a focal point in your house, leading right up from the main entry or living room/great room. As you know if you’ve priced these things, custom railings, balustrades, and similar architectural features can be pretty expensive. I found a company that can give you the look of custom work at a more affordable price though.

Cardine Studios has an ironwork panel and baluster railing system with many designs (there are more than 8 pages of pictures up on their site). The panels can be fitted to your new or existing staircase, whether it’s curved or straight, with open or closed stringers. The pieces are still hand-forged, but they don’t need to be installed by a pro, which obviously cuts down on costs. You simply order the “easy to install” panels, which are hand-finished with antique black or natural wax, and hire a local contractor to do the installation.

http://cardinestudios.com

I must say this is one of those now-I’ve-seen-everything products. The VacnSeal is a food preserver for central vacuum systems. It’s not that food preservers are odd, and I’ve seen plenty of central vacs… it’s just that I haven’t ever associated one with the other. (What was I thinking?)

The VacnSeal installs out of the way in a kitchen cabinet. It looks like the device uses your vacuum’s suck power, except instead of sucking up dirt and debris, it’s sucking air out of a bag of food (which should extend the shelf life, whether it’s dry food or something stored in the refrigerator/freezer). The VacnSeal can be installed with new central vacuums or you can retrofit your current system to make use of it. Prices start at $60, which could be a pretty good deal if you regularly throw away food that spoiled before it was eaten.

http://www.vacnseal.com/

The open floor plan is quite popular right now, where the kitchen, dining room, and living area all flow together without any walls separating them. Depending on your tastes, this may be a little too open. You don’t necessarily want to wall up the rooms, but maybe a little partition or divider would be nice, so there’s a degree of separation at least. If that sounds like you, then check out these textured glass partitions from Moondani Glass Design down in Australia.

The texture of the glass makes it less translucent than regular glass (thus providing some privacy), but the divider still allows light to get through and sound to travel around. It’s a bit of a compromise between the open floor plan and the traditional walled-off rooms.

http://www.moondaniglass.com.au/

If your ceilings look a little flat to you, you can add warmth and texture with wood. In this picture from Architectural Systems, a mahogany wood pattern is used to cover up an ugly office ceiling. It certainly adds a lot of drama to an otherwise boring work space. You could do the same transformation with your living room or bedroom. (Something like this could even be used to cover up those old 1970s popcorn ceilings that are such a pain to scrape down.) I like the dark, rich mahogany, but any wood that suits you can be used. Some of the ones this company works with are pine, beech, ash, larch, oak, cherry, maple, and exotic sapelli.

http://www.archsystems.com/

With summer a memory and winter on its way, it’s time to keep about ways to keep your home warm without wasting energy. That may mean adding additional insulation. If it’s time to insulate your home, you may be interested in going with a green product that won’t harm the environment and won’t pose any health hazards to you and your family. U.S. GreenFiber’s spray-in Cocoon insulation is made from cellulose, which doesn’t contain formaldehyde, like some other kinds of insulation do. In additional to the cellulose, the product contains fire retardants and a stabilizing adhesive to prevent settling after you’ve installed it.

http://www.cocooninsulation.com

We’ve talked about cork flooring before, but how about cork on the walls or even the ceiling? Jelinek Cork offers cork tiles (accoustic, unsulated, standard, or tackboard) and even cork wallpaper designed to be stuck on your walls. Cork’s sound-absorbing attributes are part of what make it appealing, but it’s environmentally friendly too. As the company says, “No cork trees are cut down, only the bark is peeled without destroying the tree, and it grows back within nine years, ready to be harvested again.” The accoustic cork tiles run $8.79 per 30cm x 60cm tile.

http://www.jelinekcork.com

Electric stoves are becoming increasingly popular because they’re even more convenient than gas fireplaces (which require a gas hookup). With these babies, just plug it in and poof: ambiance (and heat). It can be hard to find an electric stove that fits in with your decor though, especially if you live in an old, restored home. Sold by the Victorian Fireplace Company, the Solo Electric Stove is a freestanding unit that’s meant to fit into older homes. Though it’s a modern appliance, it’s designed to look like an old-style oil stove. The cast iron unit weights 88 pounds, is available in three colors (black, green, and burgundy), and costs $699.

http://www.thevictorianfireplace.com