Our friends at re-nest have posted a very useful life cycle assessor. Looking at it, you realize that there’s a lot to think about when acquiring a new item. When you purchase a widget, it’s helpful to think about it all the way from the raw materials to its disposal. And there are other questions to consider too! Re-nest lists an extensive list, including:

• Are employees treated fairly?
• What is the typical lifespan?
• Is it recyclable?

Do you think this is a realistic tool? Or do you ask these questions for larger purchases, or maybe only for certain categories, such as electronics?

Image courtesy of re-nest.

The blog Home Design Find brings up an interesting challenge: decorating a vacation home. Perhaps you hadn’t thought much about it, but the situation can provide some unique hurdles.

If you’re fortunate enough to own a vacation home, you may have already experienced the daunting question of how to decorate it. On one hand, you want your place to be comfortable and stylish. You also want furniture that is of high enough quality that it can withstand punishment from guests but not of so expensive that you’ll be worrying about stains and scratches every time someone sets a glass down. And if you rent out your vacation home, there’s another factor to consider: your decor has to appeal to people other than yourself.

HDF recommends hard-working, durable floors; adding a personal touch; and keeping things casual and simple. Another website, RoFx.net, offers some further tips on decorating a vacation home. Enough with the tips, though; how about some nice photos to ogle?

Sunset magazine offers some lovely photos (and some related decor tips, too) of a modern cabin in northern Washington. Along with the photos are some recommendations on where to find certain products and pieces of furniture that appear in the cabin. Carsmach.com shares some more nice photos from another gorgeous cabin in eastern Washington (what’s in the water out there?). Maybe you can find some design inspiration in these photos.

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Two recent articles from Twin Cities-based news site MinnPost have focused on the future of the urban landscape — on the suburban one, too.

The first viewpoint comes from Richard Florida, author of the book “The Great Reset: How New Ways of Living and Working Drive Post-Crash Prosperity.” In a nutshell, he believes that when the economy recovers, it “will demand cleaner, more efficient ways of living, traveling, working and arranging our communities if we hope to climb out of our hole and catch the next wave of prosperity.”

Smaller homes and better, more efficient public transportation seem to be two of his main viewpoints. And this idea of transforming the way we live is important and valid and may come to pass.

But MinnPost also featured the viewpoint of author Joel Kotkin (“The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050″). His view is that the new green urbanism is a bit of a pipe dream. Partly this has to do with psychology: a large number of Americans will always prefer single family suburban homes to multi-family urban living.

But isn’t the problem of urban sprawl something cities are racing to fix? Kotkin believes that cities will decline in importance. Jobs and services will keep moving outwards to where people live, hopefully cutting down on time spent in the car.

What do you think? Which vision will take hold after the recovery? Will you find yourself living in urban mixed-used developments or suburban homes with picket fences? Or will some third building trend drive the recovery? Do you think stages of life affect people’s housing choices?

Add Intrigue To Your Home With A Secret Room
Charles and Hudson
“It’s confession time, C&H readers. When I imagine the house of my dreams, there are several must-have features on that list: a claw-footed bathtub, a library with floor-to-ceiling shelves (and a purple velvet chaise, but that’s another story!) AND, *drumroll please*: a secret room! Turns out my fiance and I aren’t the only ones who share in our love of top-secret spaces…”

10 of the Most Cool Glass Staircase Designs
DigsDigs
Great eye candy in these photos. “We all know how cool glass staircases look like. The easiest way to check that out by yourself is to visit some Apple stores that feature them. Although sometimes such staircases also could be found in the residential houses and lofts. There are different models of them from different combinations of glass and other materials. Although any glass staircase could become an unique and eye-catching feature of a house. Here are some design inspirations for you.”

5 Design Ideas for Small Bathrooms
CalFinder blog
Whether you’re looking for ways to make your bathroom more style or more useful, this article should have some good tips for you.

Selecting Kitchen Backsplash Materials
Home Construction and Improvement
“Kitchen backsplashes serve a functional role as well as a major design feature on most modern kitchens. Most backsplashes are built with a durable material that makes kitchen clean up much easier. The wall behind the countertop typically get’s splashed with food, grease and water which highlights the need for a durable surface.”

Photo courtesy of DigsDigs and Chistophe Moinat Design

While perusing Remodelista, we came across this little gadget: the Soda Stream Pure Sparkling Water Maker. Basically, you can make your own sparkling water at home.

It certainly is an unusual kitchen gadget, and so we must ask: genius or useless? On the one hand, as the manufacturer points out, there’s a certain green aspect to this: no more using up cans and bottles of soda water (it comes with two bottles). And it doesn’t even require electrical power! All you do is fill the machine with tap water and begin pumping.

And yet, unless you and your family are huge sparkling water fans, how much will this really be used? Perhaps if you are having a party, it might come in handy for serving your guests drinks. But at $149.95, it might take a lot of bottles and cans to make up this cost.

Let us know in the comments: Would you spend money on this, or is it another kitchen gadget with limited usage?

Photo courtesy of Williams-Sonoma

Thursday’s New York Times included a feature piece on P. Allen Smith, garden designer and friend of Marvin Windows. It’s undeniable that he’s a tastemaker, as the Times calls him, but Smith himself denies the suggestion that he’s the “Martha Stewart of the South”:

“I’m like, ‘Here’s your crayons, go pick your colors and you probably have something else laying around you could use, too,’ ” he said. “She’s already picked out your colors for you and that’s it.”

The article gives a great overview of Smith’s past and how he came to be the eagle-eyed horticulturalist he is today. Give it a read to learn more about the man and his inspiration:

Mr. Smith believes a house is an archetype for the soul, and should have a balanced living environment with inner and outer aesthetics connected by a seamless transition.

Of course, that may not translate to the average gardener in Columbus, Ohio. So he simplifies the message, offering beauty with instant accessibility. The garden home can be yours with a few simple principles and techniques, the centerpiece of which is creative use of containers.

Photo courtesy of PAllenSmith.com

We’ve covered smaller living spaces before, but it’s worth another look.

By now we’re over a year into the current recession. Despite some green shoots of recovery, the future is far from certain. Combine that with a new interest in sustainability, and the footprints of new homes have been shrinking.

Inhabitat’s recent post on small house living features some interesting statistics, such as that home square footage has been steadily decreasing since 2007 and that census statistics indicate that newly constructed homes now have less bedrooms.

Obviously people are heeding the call of the recession and living in less space. However, that does not necessarily mean less money is being spent. As designers like Sarah Susanka have pointed out, quality over quantity can be very valuable when building or remodeling a home. For those that are building less house and putting on smaller additions for the sake of money though, the question is if this new-found aesthetic will last when better times are here.

Or we may continue to see smaller houses as people continue to want to live in certain areas. There’s only so much land, as Japanese builders have known for a long time. We featured this narrow house in a post a while back, but it’s getting some attention from NPR. Who knows? These ultra-small, super-innovative homes might become the wave of the future here!

What do you think of small houses? A necessity or a virtue? Or both?

Unless you live in the desert or close by like people in Arizona, you have had issues with mildew and mold. Mildew is really the first step in getting mold, so addressing this right away is a good thing.

Indoors you might be experiencing it in the bathroom. For both issues — mildew or mold — fresh air movement is your friend. If you have a window in the bathroom and can open it, then do so. The exhaust fan should not only be running while you take a shower or bath but at least 10 minutes after you are done to pull as much moisture out of the space.

If you have a shower door, try to keep it open during that drying time as closing things up helps breed mildew. You can do this with a curtain as well, but the catch-22 is that you can start to get some mildew on the actual liner.  One thing I have found is that all liners are not created equal: Look for commercial-grade liners and expect to pay about $15 to $20.

As far as mildew where the walls meet the tub or shower floor, you can clean that with an overnight treatment of bleach. There are bleach-based spray cleaners you can buy that foam a bit when you spray them. In the evening, spray any area where you see the mildew and coat it well. Allow it to sit on the surface overnight. In the morning when you go to shower, take a nylon scrubbing brush and give the treated area a quick scrub. You will be amazed!

Mold is an entirely different story. There are more than 1,000 strains of mold and really only a handful of them are dangerous to humans, but you still need to be careful.

In the basement, try open a window, run a dehumidifier, or install an exhaust fan connected to a humidistat. This can drastically reduce the amount of moisture and odor in a basement space.

The same is true in an attic. Mold can live on the back side of your roof.  Make sure any exhaust fan vents are connected to the outside of the home. These fans should never be allowed to just vent into the attic or next to a roof vent. Also consider installing an attic fan. When set up correctly, that hot, humid air can be pulled out of the space and fresh air will be brought in from the vents under the eaves.

If you have mold and are not sure what to do, start with a home test kit. These kits, which you can get at your local hardware store, cost about $10. You take a sample and send it into a lab for an additional $30. Then the results will be sent back to you. If it is a strain that is concerning, then you need professional help to eradicate this from your home.

Mildew and mold can be controlled and eliminated. Your job is to not ignore them because they can have serious health consequences for you and your family.

About a year ago, I saw an article in the New York Times about the latest in swimming crazes: Dumpster pools. Yes, Dumpster pools. No, this has nothing to do with swimming in liquefied garbage. It’s just a unique way to cool off on a hot summer day in urban spaces where space might be in short supply.

In the original New York Times article, the Dumpster pool was part of a secret “urban country club” in Brooklyn. An unused city space was suddenly outfitted with a pool, lined and filtered.

And now via Curbly, the Dumpster-as-pool trend is coming to the forefront again during these dog days of summer. Unlike last year’s hipster installation, these Dumpster pools have the backing of the establishment — Mayor Michael Bloomberg to be exact. They’ll be open on Park Ave. on the first three Saturdays of August, so if you live in New York, be sure to check them out.

What do you think? Is this an ingenious use of a necessary but maligned object? A perfect way to squeeze a pool into a tiny yard? Or does this idea of swimming in a Dumpster pool seem just a little bit gross?

Image courtesy of WBUR on Flickr

The 20-story W.T. Waggoner Building in Fort Worth, Texas, was constructed in 1919 and remains on the Register of Historic Buildings. After repainting the exterior of the old wood windows every four years, building owners sought a lower-maintenance window replacement solution. When asked about options, the team at Marvin determined that the look of the existing jalousie window assembly was achievable with a one-wide, two-high operating awning configuration. Marvin’s standard 70% Kynar 500 exterior clad finish satisfied their need for low maintenance.

Not only did the building experience enhanced energy efficiency but the new dual-pane windows provided reduced sound transmission. The owners were also satisfied with the installation process that preserved the interior trim and was conducted from the building’s interior, reducing the need for scaffolding and minimizing disruption.

Project Highlights

• High performing, low-maintenance product finish that replicated the look of the existing windows and eliminated the need for repainting
• Successful installation solution that maintained the daylight opening and preserved the interior trim
• Non-disruptive interior installation that allowed for “business as usual”