Over at Architectural Digest, they are featuring some beautiful celebrity kitchens. We recommend checking them all out and imagining how your favorite celebrities whip up gourmet meals, but we have to share the one we loved the most. Feast your eyes on this unusual kitchen:

No, it’s not in a European dungeon — although you probably figured that out from the stainless steel appliances. It’s Gerard Butler’s New York kitchen and it manages to be subtly masculine and cozy at the same. It seems like the sort of kitchen where you might roast a whole pig just as easily as you could boil up some pasta.

During the colder months, this kitchen would be especially nice to warm up in. It’s not the typical light and bright kitchen we’re used to seeing, but it works. We’re jealous of Gerard! You can read more about it here.

What do you think of his kitchen?

Image courtesy of Architectural Digest

5 Ways to Make a Better Entrance
Houzz.com
“The entryway is the first visible part of a home’s interior, so it’s important to keep it neat and stylish. But it also has the inevitable tendency to become a catch-all for everyone’s junk collected throughout the day. The key is to keep both functions in mind when setting up your entry. This is one space guaranteed to be used every day, so treat it as a room and not just an awkward transitional area. These 5 tips should help you create a functional and tidy and welcome to your home.”

Plugwise Eliminates Excess Energy Use
Jetson Green
“California-based kWh Power is tackling phantom energy loss by introducing the Plugwise system in the United States. Developed by Dutch company Plugwise in 2006, this system allows you to monitor, track, and control unnecessary energy use throughout your home or office. The system consists of ‘Circles’ which are plugged into standard wall outlets to measure load on that outlet, and a ‘Stick’ that wirelessly relays data from the circles to your computer, where Plugwise Source, the monitoring and management software, allows you see and control usage. Data can also be uploaded to the web for remote access via laptops and smartphones.”

Small Kitchen Layouts to Inspire Your Remodel
CalFinder Blog
“The kitchen seems a straightforward thing. It’s a place to cook. Entertain. You have a refrigerator, a stove. Often a dishwasher. Food comes in, food gets served. But it’s not as simple as that, of course. Especially if you’re looking at your existing kitchen that your home may have come with, and reconsidering how you can create the exact kitchen you want. Perhaps you’re doing a full kitchen remodel, and have no idea what kind of kitchen will benefit you the most. Well. We are here to serve and help you.”

Thinking about redesigning or just sprucing up an existing space?
Home Renovation Guide
“Unlike the homes in the magazines, most of us will never own a Schonbek crystal chandelier to tower over a twelve-seater dining table. In fact, these days we’re lucky if there’s enough floor space in our homes for a dining room at all! Multi-functional, small scale and affordable is the way many of us live. And as more people move into and vie for premium spaces in the cities, large spaces will continue to be an expensive option. We all want our homes to look good. But money, time and resources often limit what we can accomplish in our homes.”

Design-Savvy Kitchen Remodeling On the Rise
CalFinder Blog
“We’ve noticed a huge trend among homeowners lately—that design-savvy kitchen remodeling is on the rise. Whether they’re taking to the web for self-taught strategy, or consulting with budget-smart designers and kitchen contractors before construction begins, homeowners are increasingly involved in the design process. … Some of the trends that we have seen—and loved—include these three design styles.”

15 Posts on Decluttering and Organizing Your Home
Re-Nest
“What’s a better way to start off a new year than to to organize, declutter and simplify your home? Whether you’re looking to live with less or are simply rethinking your space, check out these tips to kick off an organized and clutter-free new year!”

Best of 2011: Before & After
Centsational Girl
Whether it’s decorating or painting or organizing or anything else related to making a house look like an elegant, comfortable home, this woman knows what she’s doing. Get some ideas from her round-up of some favorite projects from the past year.

20 Green Building Innovations of 2011
Jetson Green
“Our team had the great opportunity to report on hundreds of green building innovations in the form of new technologies and advanced materials. We see these innovations as contributors to a world where it’s important to reduce waste and resource consumption. I hope you enjoy this unordered review gathered from our archives of the last year.”

Why Window Replacement is Cheaper Than You Think
CalFinder Blog
“If your home’s heating isn’t running as efficiently as you’d like it to this winter, then you might consider window replacement. Inefficient windows can leak a huge percentage of heat from your home—as much as 30%—and cost you a lot of money every month. … But the idea of window replacement may seem daunting, complicated and expensive. The good news is that you can avoid all of those words by going through the window replacement process intelligently.”

This is such a cool idea! Do you have some silverware that’s looking a little old and boring? Maybe you’d like to finesse your flatware and get another set to remain un-finessed. Well, Apartment Therapy has an idea for you: spray paint your silverware!

You can do all sorts of funky colors or stick with a simple palette. And as Apartment Therapy reminds us, only do the handles — not the part of the utensil your mouth touches.

What do you think of this idea?

Image courtesy  of Apartment Therapy.

Is there EVER a good time to remodel your kitchen? No matter what, it means major disruption, dirt, dust, inconvenience and expense. The trade off for all this is a beautiful new kitchen at the end that will fit your lifestyle, add value to your house and maybe even save you some money with energy-efficient appliances. But in the meantime, there’s the pain.

Many people prefer to remodel their kitchens in the spring and summer. With the warm weather, it’s easy to grill out and dining out options become a little more numerous with restaurant patios. Plus, if you’re cooking, summer is the perfect time for low-prep salads and other no-heat food.

Winter can be a little bit more of a difficult time to tackle a kitchen remodeling project. Besides the reasons above, there’s the holidays. Coming right after Halloween is Thanksgiving and then Christmas and Hanukkah and New Year’s  and Valentine’s Day…

What do you do when your kitchen consists of a hot plate and a roll of paper towels? Luckily, our friends at CalFinder have a few tips to help you keep your sanity:

• The right contractor is key. Find someone who not only can work within your budget, but who will listen to you and find creative solutions to problems that will inevitably crop up.
• We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Failure to plan is planning to fail. You can save yourself a lot of stress when remodeling you kitchen around the holidays if you have not only carefully planned what you want out of your kitchen, but also planned for the ways it will affect your life.

Check out the rest of the post for more tips and here’s one from us: Make this the year you veer away from tradition. Maybe you always cook a big Thanksgiving dinner. Maybe this year you and your family could volunteer at a food shelter.

If you always host on Christmas Eve, find someone else to take the reins this year. And the Christmas Day turkey might end up being Chinese takeout. Whatever your solution, the holiday when the kitchen is being remodeled will be memorable!

Writing for Houzz.com, designer Rebekah Zaveloff recently published an article about 10 Elements of Today’s State-of-the-Art Kitchens.

Appliances are the first and most obvious element people will look toward, and her article is full of great examples — with jealously-inducing photos, if you’re the type who likes to cook. But she also includes some other concepts and less tangible ideas, as well, you’ll find in modern kitchens. They include:

• Dedicated task stations: “State-of-the-art kitchens are designed more like restaurant kitchens, complete with a clean up station, a prep station, a hot station and computer station,” she writes.
• Universal design: This is something we write about often at MLuxe, and Zaveloff reinforces our thoughts on the subject.
• Cutting-edge organization: “Today there is every form of organizational gadget, including magic corners, pull-out pantries, spice organizers and waste bin and recycling organizers, just to name a few. “

Any kitchen remodeling project should start by weighing risks and rewards. A newly remodeled kitchen may satisfy your design needs, but what will it mean for your home’s resale value? Kitchen remodels can be the most costly considering appliances, cabinetry and flooring. While we often think of a remodeling project as a drastic overhaul, the kitchen is one space where subtle changes can have a big impact on its appearance while upping resale value.

To get you in the right frame of mind for a moderate kitchen remodeling project, Calfinder has a great list of thought-starters to keep you from a full-on catastrophe. Take notes:

• Keep your existing floor plan – You don’t have to knock down walls and remove islands to create space. (“Invest in features that make storage efficient and convenient, like dividers, pull-out trays, lazy Susans and “garage door” under-cabinet storage for small appliances.”)
• Keep major items in place – Moving appliances isn’t as simple as moving furniture. Factor the cost of moving electrical, plumbing and gas lines and relocating a stove or sink becomes a major undertaking. (“Reconfiguring any utility is labor intensive, and it’s the labor involved in a kitchen remodel that adds the most time to the whole renovation.”)
• Go semi-custom – Though factory-assembled, semi-customized cabinetry gives you a great variety of sizes, options and styles.
• Pick affordable countertops and flooring - This is where a project can quickly spiral out of control. Think practical. Can you add to your countertops instead of completely replacing them? Do you really want to start from scratch with floording?  (“Adding a stainless steel rim to simple laminate countertops gives them a sleek, modern look … [Choose] materials that can be applied over existing flooring, like vinyl or laminate.”)

[Photo from Houzz]

Hire a remodeling consultant? It’s something to consider
Kathy’s Remodeling Blog
“You’ve got your builders and general contractors and remodeling contractors and architects and designers and engineers and plumbers and roofers and tile setters and butchers and bakers and candlestick makers. Oh wait. Well, anyway, it can be very confusing. And that’s why consultants were invented.”

Kitchen Design: A Picture Frame for Your Backsplash
Houzz.com
“If you are looking for ideas for a traditional kitchen backsplash, consider creating a picture-frame feature above your range or cooktop. These are square or rectangular tile designs bordered by molding, much like a picture frame. Think of it as wall art for your backsplash. Here are some great examples of picture-frame backsplashes and some tips for doing this yourself.”

Your End Of Summer Home Maintenance Checklist
Charles and Hudson
“Moving into a new season typically means that there are some home maintenance tasks you can check off your to-do list. That’s especially true as we head into fall, as much of the country will begin to experience cooler temperatures before winter’s frigid grip takes hold. To make sure your home is in tip-top shape, consider tackling some of these checklist items.”

5 Little-Known Ways to Save on Your Kitchen Remodel
CalFinder Blog
“Once you’ve made the decision to remodel your kitchen, the next challenge may be to find the right balance between getting all the features you want and making costs manageable. Keeping in mind the five P’s – planning, priorities, proportion, placement, and professional – can help you accomplish your goals.”

When it comes to energy waste, tech is hero and villain
CNN.com
“In this day and age, we’ve come to expect that technology will help us save electricity, not waste it. But when it comes to electronics, there are glaring exceptions to the rule that more technology makes our lives more efficient.
It seems technology has become simultaneously the hero and villain of the energy-efficiency movement.”

Well, now! This definitely goes in the file of cool AND useful products. Check it out: a mini dishwasher that fits neatly into one side of your sink. It works with your sink’s plumbing and can wash up to five place settings at a time.

So what’s the problem? This product was discontinued by KitchenAid. While we’re sure they had good reason to do so, it does seem too bad: here is an easy way to fit a dishwasher into kitchens. People with older kitchens might appreciate not having to rip out cabinets to install a regular, larger dishwasher, and those with dishwashers might like an extra, smaller dishwasher for overflow. Plus, we would venture a guess that it uses less water than a traditional dishwasher.

Charles and Hudson (where we found this) wasn’t able to find out why it was discontinued, but they do note that at $1,800 it wasn’t very budget-friendly for such a small dishwasher. Maybe that is what killed it. Or maybe there were design flaws. Either way, it’s a great product concept that we wish we’d see more of!

Readers–what are some great home products that you loved and are no longer available? Let us know in the comments!

Image courtesy of Charles and Hudson

The kitchen is the heart of the home, says the description of this remodel case study video from Lou Manfredini’s HouseSmartsTV. And who’d argue?

In this segment, HouseSmartsTV talks with an interior designer about a recent remodel that gives a bland kitchen space back its soul. The most significant change was to remove a peninsula that unfortunately cut the space in half and to add a stylish stone island.

A drawer-style microwave and refrigerator (with panels to match other cabinetry) are a clever way save space that can be better used for other purposes. Other nice touches include under-cabinet lighting and glass decorated with gold leaf. Watch the video to see the before and after photos, and see more from HouseSmartsTV on YouTube.