Style and comfort are two things pretty much any homeowner would like more of. Even the nicest, coziest home has a room or an area the homeowner isn’t terribly fond of or would like to improve.

In that spirit, we’ve found these two flooring products might help put more of that sought-after style and comfort under foot.

The Luxury Housing Trends blog uncovered these incredible interlocking puzzle-piece wood flooring tiles from Beckwith Interiors. The unique design is sure to stand out and start a conversation. They’re available in several designs and woods.

If you’re looking for something a little less out-there, try adding some comfort to your winter wonderland with heated rugs. You’ve heard of radiant-heat flooring, but Curbly.com’s DIY Maven points out a new product from Warmly Yours that works much like a traditional rug pad — with one big difference: “But these pads you plug in, giving you a pleasant case of toasty toes,” the maven writes.

What cool new products have you discovered recently?

The food we prepare and eat leaves us with certain scraps that we don’t know what to do with. Yes, making coffee and fresh orange juice is tasty and healthy, but what do you do with the leftovers? Re-Nest tackles some issues that kitchen gourmands may wonder about…

According to their experts, when you are done with juicing your own fruits and vegetables, there may be lots of pulp left over. As easy as it is to scrape it into the trash, there are a few alternatives: mix it into pancakes or breads, use it as a base for a sauce or, if you truly can’t do anything with it, compost it.

For disposing of coffee grounds, you have even more choices. If you’ll be hitting the shower after your morning coffee, mix your coffee grounds with soap for an exhilarating exfoliator. You can also use the grounds to scrub your hands to get rid of food odors. And if there are unpleasant odors in your fridge or car, or on your pet, those leftover coffee grounds will do the trick.

Now that you’ve properly disposed of your morning coffee and OJ, there’s always the matter of the newspaper. Recycling  it might be your usual earth-friendly course, but if you are a crafty knitter, consider making yarn from it when you’re through reading.

Good morning and wake up to a green day!

Image courtesy of How can I recycle this on Flickr.

After spending the week with architects, builders and suppliers at the International Builders Show, Lou Manfredini files this report on the industry’s outlook for 2010.

Kevin Morrow, senior program manager for NAHB, foresees growth in “green building” — perhaps no surprise, driven by consumers’ desire for green products.

Susan Marvin, president of Marvin Windows, is excited about the positive response to the company’s new products. She says 2010 is going to be another challenging year, but the way to fight through a challenging year is to continue to listen to what consumers want and to deliver high quality and good value.

Jeff Seidel, a builder from New York, says he’s optimistic but realistic about 2010. His company is well-positioned, he says, with a dual purpose: building and remodeling. The firm’s remodeling business was strong in 2009 and will continue to be strong in 2010 — a reflection of consumers’ increasing desire to update what they have rather than try to buy new.

A recent post by contributor Lou Manfredini talked about better organizing your home for the sake of preserving your sanity and increasing your usable space. But there’s another motivation for some people to banish clutter: selling a house.

The Calfinder Blog shares seven tips for staging your house for a sale, and they start with “get rid of your stuff.” Staging, for those who might not know, is the art (or is it a science) of aesthetically preparing a home so potential buyers get the best possible first impression. Clearing away your own stuff — not just the clutter and the nick-knacks, but as much as is absolutely possible — leaves room, mentally and physically, for the potential buyer to envision his or her stuff.

Other tips include:

• Create activity-specific areas
• Let in the light
• Add colorful accents
• Arrange what you have more stylishly
• Bring nature indoors
• Spruce up the outside

Check out the Calfinder blog for more details, and read more about staging at About.com, another outstanding resource.

Photo courtesy of Real Estaging via Flickr

Our blogging friends at the home-improvement site Charles & Hudson offer a constant stream of great advice for home owners. For example, take the pile of tips you’ll find in the “build it yourself” category. Or, to be more direct, just check out the archive of tips.

Considering the time of year and the nationwide cold snap we’re collectively facing, we thought it’d be good to revisit a rather timely post: one full of tips on how to melt snow and ice without damaging your walkways. And of course, by melting snow and ice, you’re also avoiding damaging your head, knees, wrists, elbows and rears.

The tips include:

• installing a somewhat textured walkway,
• installing thermal heat elements underneath the path
• using a thermal heated walkway such as HeatTrak, or
• simply focus on reducing the slip danger

“Use sand or kitty litter,” C&H writes. “It won’t melt the ice but it will increase the coefficient of friction” — and increasing the safety of your family and your guests.

On the same topic, you can find more tips here.

Photo courtesy of LisaW123 via Flickr

“Clean your room!” It’s a refrain that parents often throw at their children, but when you’re an adult, it can be tempting to concentrate on cleaning the more public areas of your home.

Unfortunately, keeping your bedroom fresh and clean is one of the most important household tasks you can do. Because a good portion of your time in there is spent unconscious, you want to make sure that dust and dirt don’t interrupt your slumber.

Apartment Therapy has listed some great ways to get and keep your bedroom clean and orderly. Here’s the plan:

• Take 10 minutes to clean. Pick up, dust and wipe and make sure everything is in its own place.
• Clean and organized the closet. Yes, you can shut the door, but don’t you want to be able to find all your clothes and shoes easily? An organized closet is a thing of beauty, but it might take a little time to get there. So carve out anywhere from an hour to an afternoon to really get organized. Don’t forget about all the great closet organizers available!
• Control dust! This is especially important for asthma or allergy sufferers. This may involve anything from removing carpet to washing sheets in hot water.
• Make homemade linen spray to keep your bedroom smelling great.

Visit Apartment Therapy for more tips on keeping your bedroom clean all year long!

Happy New Year! As you are attempting to carry out your New Year’s resolutions, don’t forget to make a few for your home. It deserves a little TLC and there’s never a better time to start than the new year! Shelterpop offers some great ideas. Here are a few of their hints:

• Green your house. Get an energy audit and adjust your thermostat. You’ll help the planet and save on energy costs. We have a few additional tips from home improvement expert Lou Manfredini on getting your home green.
• Clean it up! Clutter is annoying and unsightly. Getting your home truly cleared out will keep it company-ready.
• Go paperless. It will help make you green and clutter-free.
• Regularly bring in flowers to beautify your newly green, clean home.

Visit Shelterpop for more!

There is one thing we all have in common around our homes: too much stuff.

Have you ever heard anyone say, “I have too much closet space”? Didn’t think so. How about, “My garage is a haven of neat and tidy”? Well, the real trick in keeping your home together is two-fold.

1. Everything needs a place of its own.
2. You need to get it there.

Below are some tips to help you get your home organized.

General storage:

You can achieve this by way of storage totes. These totes come in every style, color, and shape you can imagine. They are sturdy and stackable. Larger units can hold holiday decorations and toys. Smaller units can slide under your bed to hold sweaters and shoes. For those of you with basements, these totes make great sense if your basement ever gets water. They’ll keep your items dry and if you get a lot of water they can even float. Prices range from a few dollars to under $50.00 for the big ones. One of my safety tips: If you are using larger totes for storage drill a hole in the top about half an inch around to let a little airflow inside, just in case a small child were to lock himself inside.

Closets:

Whoever came up with the “single rod and shelf” idea must not have had much to put in his or her closet. These days closet organizers are virtually everywhere. From home centers to hardware stores, you can find systems for as little as $20, and they take virtually no skills to install. A screwdriver, hammer, and tape measure are about all you’ll need. In a little more than an hour, you can have a closet that will hold up to 40 percent more clothes and apparel than the traditional rod and shelf.

Garage and deck:

Two areas that seem to collect all sorts of junk and none of fits neatly anywhere. There are countless systems out there to create a home for basketballs, Rollerblades, and Rip Sticks. A deck box is a great way to use that corner space on your deck or patio to store all of your outdoor gear. These sturdy cabinets are waterproof and will store your outdoor furniture pads, barbeque tools, even your spare propane tank. It can be locked as well.

If your home is like mine you have more than one bicycle. (We have 6.) Stackable bike racks are a great way to use all the space in your garage or even a storage locker in your apartment building. Bicycles take up a lot of storage space and stacking them gives you more room. Just think – you might actually have room for your car!

Photo courtesy of canodew on Flickr

There is a huge portion of the country that will be experiencing a lot of ice build-up on their roofs this winter, and one of the most common questions I’m asked during the cold winter months is how prevent those bothersome ice dams.

Every winter I battle with ice dams that form on my roof and in my gutters. I clean the gutters every fall, but the ice returns each winter. How can I get rid of it?

If you are one of the many homeowners who find ice building up and causing problems with your home, I have outlined a couple of simple tips on beating the deep roof freeze.

You know what they say about ice dams? They wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for all that dam ice! But seriously, the key to eliminating ice build-up is to maintain the same temperature between your roof and the outside air.

To do this, keep your attic well ventilated. Continuous soffit vents and continuous ridge vents enable air to flow into the attic and then circulate out the top. Also, be sure that there isn’t any insulation stuck in the crotch of the roof rafters. This can block airflow into the soffit vents. And make sure that your ceiling insulation has a rating of at least R40, meaning a twelve- to sixteen-inch thickness of insulation. Some areas of the country need even more insulation.

Another option is to install heat cables at the base of the roof and into the gutters and down spouts. Make sure that the cables are installed as described by the manufacturer and that they are plugged into a GFCI outlet to lessen the chance of a short and potential fire hazard. Also check to make sure that your city or village allows these cables to be installed

Our blogging friends at Home Design Find recently published some helpful tips for the collector in all of us. From the article:

…anyone with a collection of just about anything comes to realize at some point that things can get out of hand. Collections, after a while, can come to feel like clutter. And that’s a real downer.

What steps can you take to organize and highlight your collection rather than have it sit around and collect dust in one big jumble?

Here are a few paraphrased tips from Home Design Find:

• Edit. Edit. Edit. Just because you own 300 snow globes doesn’t mean you have to display them all. Instead, pick, choose and rotate to display just some of your collection to the best effect.
• Use lighting. Dramatically lighting a collection can turn just a humdrum display into something earth-shattering. Use directed spotlights to draw the attention to your collection.
• Beware the window sill and mantle trap. A lot of collections of small things tend to find their ways to window sills and mantlepieces. But this look can often look cluttered and haphazard. If you choose a mantle or window sill as a display area, edit the objects displayed and keep them grouped together for maximum visual impact.

That’s just a taste. For more detail and more tips, be sure to check out their article.

Photo courtesy of Lost Found Art