Minimalist Kitchen for Young Couple

Minimalist kitchens are especially popular with young couples setting up home together for the first time. Ideal for those that dislike fuss, but appreciate lots of choice and functionality. Whether you prefer a color co-ordinated theme or something more dynamic. You can mix and match this kitchen range to express your own unique style and personality and to get a best home design on best kitchen design for young couple.

Here are some tips that might help spark your own ideas for simplifying your stuff down to a minimalist kitchen:

• Kitchen towels can double as hotpads. Just fold them up very well.
• Turn a glass upside down and use it to cut biscuits and round cookies.
• Nobody needs a cake tester. A fork, toothpick, or a bit of raw spaghetti will each work just as well.
• In a pinch a bottle works as a rolling pin. It needs to be about the shape of an old glass soda bottle, so something like a bottle of ketchup, a bottle of worcestershire sauce or soy sauce will work. If you fill it up with ice water and put the lid on tightly you have a great rolling pin for keeping your pie crust flaky.
• While I vastly prefer a pastry cutter, you can cut butter into flour as for biscuits or pie crust by using two knives. I never owned a pastry cutter until I was nearly 30, and I made a lot of pies and biscuits in that timeframe. What works even better is your clean fingers. Wash your hands well, slice the butter into the flour and pick up a palmfull at a time and gently rub your hands together until all the flour and fat are mixed together.
• If you are crushed for space and/or funds, you don't have to have a spray bottle of oil such as PAM. You can spread oil on your baking sheets the old fashioned way, with your hands, or the other old fashioned way, with your children's hands. They will love it.
• A colander is really, really handy, but this is another tool I lived without for years. You can get by with a little coordination and a cooking pan with a lid. You just carefully hold the lid cracked a wee bit and tilt your pan to pour the liquid out (using your towel for a hot-pad, of course). It's a good idea to pour the liquid into a bowl inthe sink rather than directly into the sink, so that if you drop your pan the pasta won't go in the sink. If you have a steamer basket you can have that double as a colander- put it inside a bowl or pan and ladle the food from pan to steamer basket. Or- get a colander but make sure it's on that can also double as a steamer.
• A vegetable peeler can be used in place of a cheese slicer.
• A giant mixing bowl is a very nice thing for a large family to have, but you can also use a large, clean bucket.

Adopted from: heartkeepercommonroom.blogspot.com

From Planes to Furniture

Furniture designer Giancarlo de Astis designs wonderful furniture out of old airplane parts.

Il Cardine, a lamp from mahogony and an aircraft door hinge.

Il Sole, made of jet engine turbine blades and burl walnut. (The knights of the round table would have loved it!)

According to his website, Giancarlo earns his artistic license in the American West, where creative man-hours are embedded in the shapes of thousands of airplanes glimmering under intense heat awaiting their irrevocable meltdown in the desert bone yards of Arizona.

Similar to old prospectors spotting potential sites, Giancarlo delicately selects each airplane part that beams the brilliance of its engineered design.

A trip to the junkyard has never sounded so romantic!

Thanks to reader Gary for sending me these.

Build your own hidden door

Remember this library with a secret powder room behind a bookshelf? I just ran across instructions for making something similar from off the shelf parts at Ikeahacker...


You'll have to play with the aesthetics a bit to make it steampunk styled, but the idea was too good not to share.

Chinese Dinning Room Designing for Chinese New Year Celebrations

Decorating a dinning room for next Chinese New Year are similar with former celebration on last year, it doesn't different in much, the important thing is the color of table set and other decorations. By dominated with red and gold color, Red is a prominent color in this Asian style interior design, perhaps because it means good luck in Chinese culture. Other bright colors such as yellow and green are used as accents as well. Colorful paper lanterns are often made in very vibrant colors. Wood tones tend to be dark and rich in color.


Elle Decor's Dining By Design, Produced by DIFFA
Source: www.omgallery.com

Mod My Fridge!

So if you were around last summer for the refrigerator posts, you may remember that I was leaning towards modding a panel front refrigerator as the most cost effective way to get a stylish fridge. After some regular Craigslist watching, $400, and the manual labor to haul it home 30 miles, I'm now the proud owner of a 5 year old, cabinet front, counter depth, GE fridge similar to this one.

So what's a steampunk homemaker to do with such a thing? It probably isn't the obvious first thing, but I've started by buying gauges on Ebay.

I liked the irony of having a heater gauge on a refrigerator.

This one is actually a working fridge thermometer -- if I get the probe sensor inside, I'll actually get the internal temperature on the outside.

This one is just a pressure gauge, easy to find on eBay.

Gauges for Milliamperes and Microamperes

Beyond the obvious "buy cool stuff" part of it, I think the actual first step is going to be finding/fitting/cutting some brass sheets to replace the cabinet fronts with.

I'm not the most artistic person, so I'm a bit worried about the whole "design something that looks good" aspect of this project. I'm taking inspiration from this Kohler ad, the Steampunk Treehouse, and Roger Wood's Klockwerks.

I'm soliciting ideas -- what else should I do with it? Do I go overboard and cover the entire front or should I take a more restrained approach? Any ideas for how to cover the black plastic of the water dispensor and the black handles that run the length of the doors? At this stage of the project, I'm open to any suggestion, no matter how crazy. Bring it on.

Villa Concepts Home Design

Designing your home like a villa?, its not difficult, the important thing is we don't need large yard to build our home, and another important thing is the power of the building. We can creating outdoor upstairs to get more privacy and to split each floor, so if the person who want to stay more than one family, they can choose different floor but they didn't disturb each other. The picture are created by Claudio Matei with Autocad, 3D Studio Max, V-Ray software, see more information about this picture in www.3d-photorealism.eu.

Caprio Cherry Kitchen, Your Minimalist Kitchen

There are several ways to make your room such as kitchen looks more large, by using minimalist design we can make our small room but efficient enough. The important thing is the size of the cabinet and other furniture, use small size chairs and table. The contrast color between floor and furniture also can make our room looks more large. Here is the description of Caprio Cherry Kitchen from www.marthamockford.co.uk.

Caprio conveys the meaning of modern minimalism with a simple slab design and dramatic colouring. The beautiful cherry veneer embraces a sleek, sophisticated kitchen design and contrasts well with the coolness of stainless steel and granite. A selection od screen glazed doors, including a 195 mm option, make a confident statement in this kitchen

Verso Scala Cherry Kitchen Design

Warm kitchen can be reached by using large size of the kitchen design, and also maximize the natural lighting by creating large window, so the outdoor light can enter to the kitchen more.
Verso Scala Cherry optimizes the timeless characteristics of traditional furniture and the changing needs of today’s modern lifestyles. The warm PVC Cherry front achieves an authentic country feel whilst retaining a hard wearing resilience. A generous array of accessory components and features incorporating open frame units and an imposing over mantle complete this rustic design. Use the bright color for the wall and the wall, to match with the cabinet and other kitchen furniture. Visit www.marthamockford.co.uk to see more information or to order it.

On Heaters and Radiators

Here's some heat related goodness to warm you up this winter.

Reader Joe Kesselman sent me a link to a Turkish company, Carisa, who is making hot water radiators in some very unique shapes. Unfortunately, all are chromed stainless steel and not warm steampunk metals, but they do have some clever designs.

The pipe organ style is the cleverest:
In only slightly related news, reader Paul Hulbert sent me this device from the South Western Electricity Historical Society in Bristol, UK.



My first guess was that it was a 1960s mod of a Victorian device, but it turns out I was wrong -- the extremely modern looking innards are just as Victorian as it's outtards.

This type of heater was available around the turn of the (19th!) century. This Apollo "Dowsing Sausage" Fire dates from approximately 1910. My friend and former colleague John Heath of the SWEHS explains that:

The electric filament lamp was considered inefficient because far more energy was converted into heat than produced light.

H. J. Dowsing, in 1896, designed a "heating lamp" with a frosted glass envelope. It had a 250 watt carbon filament which gave off no light except a warm red glow.

These were the first practical electric radiant heaters.

The Cannon bulb fire in 1904 had four of the "Dowsing Sausages" set against a polished reflector and controlled by brass switches.

The Apollo fire in the museum is similar.

Anyone visited the SWEHS in Bristol? It sounds like a lovely place!

Thank you Paul and Joe (and John!) for sharing these with us.

Best Bathroom Design, an Awarded Gazebo Bathroom

This picture is one of several best bathroom designs that had several award, and had been published in several magazine. I thing this is the best bathroom completed with gazebo and special wall design.

Here are the descriptions:
Awards: Honorable Mention- 1994 National Kitchen & Bathroom Association Design Competition
Publications:
1994 - Builder/Architect Magazine
1996 - Colonial Homes Magazine
1996 - Oklahoma City Real Estate Magazine

source: www.karenblackskitchens.com

More Gazebo Design:

• Outdoor Gazebo Bathroom for Maximum Relaxing
• Tips on Dos and Don't about Gazebo
  

Considering Your Kitchen Color Design

Similar Color

The most important thing in choosing the right color of your kitchen is the color of your cabinet and other equipment in the kitchen, The flooring you choose will set the tone for the whole kitchen. The style, texture and color adopted for the floor are key in achieving your desired look. Your kitchen floor can be used to compliment and finish the look of the whole room.

Contrast Color

There are two choices about combining the color between both, First, we can use the contrast color, and the last, we can use the similar and match color between them.

Source: www.kitchenremodelideas.com and www.withknobson.com

Aletta Cherry, combining elegance and simplicity

How to combine the elegance and simplicity in kitchen design? Timeless design and intelligent use of space are the main features within this streamlined, modern kitchen. Combining elegance with simplicity, the purposefully aesthetic design of this laminate door does not compromise on quality. Instead, it demonstrates a unique blend of soft clean lines and perfected manufacturing techniques, to offer you the latest fashion in modern-day kitchen styling.

source: www.marthamockford.co.uk

Tips for Designing Kitchen Interior

When you are changing the interior design of the kitchen you may be able to make your kitchen look bigger or smaller all based on the type of paint you use. For example, if you want to expand your space then use a paint with cool, light colors. Even dull colors with very minimal contrast can make the kitchen feel a bit bigger.

If you want to make the space seem smaller then you want to use warm dark colors or even bright colors. To make a ceiling seem lower use warm colors and dark tones and the opposite for heightening a ceiling use cool colors and light tints. Shortening a room, use dark colors, lengthening a room is cool, light colors and to hide a spot that you don?t like use the surrounding color already there.

Changing the floor can be very important to the look of the room. You may want tile or stone or even wood flooring. Countertops should match the color scheme of the kitchen and lighting is an important part as well. Even using new hardware can add a new scheme to the kitchen. You don?t have to tear your kitchen apart to get a new look, a fresh coat of paint, new hardware and new appliances and whole new look.
The article is taken from www.decorating-interior.info, The picture are taken from www.3dhaonline.com, and www.subzero.com/kdc2006/

Are you an Alchemist?

I was struck by Dylan Kehde Roelofs saying he was an alchemist -- a word that we don't use much anymore, even if we have the chops to back it up. It made me start thinking that perhaps I'm an alchemist, too!

Let's look at some examples that happen in my house:

• turning milk into cheese
• turning water and grain into beer
• apple juice into hard cider
  

{I wonder -- does turning electricity into light count? }

It may not be as romantic as turning lead into gold, but I definitely think these sorts of projects qualify as alchemy.

Why am I even thinking about this? Steampunk is the intersection of the Maker movement with science fiction aesthetic and a revival of interest in the Victorian. Would it have gotten off the ground, and be gaining speed as quickly as it is, without physical goods made by hand by people like Jake von Slatt or Datamancer? Those first steampunk pieces thrilled us -- made us say "I want to be part of this! I want this to be part of my life." -- but without them we may not even of known that this thing called steampunk exists.

The struggle for me is in finding some level of "authenticity" within the steampunk home -- if all we do is buy stuff that looks good that's not exactly the spirit of steampunk (although patronizing artists is a noble cause not to be overlooked). Figuring out what you can make (or what lead you can turn into gold) -- with or without a neoVictorian spin -- can help inform your personal steampunk style. Into sewing? Why don't you make a desk from an old sewing machine table, or find some old sewing machine parts to use in a mantel still life or incorporate into a lamp or clock. If coffee is your thing, why not build a brass vacuum brewer? If it's something you have a passion for, you'll find learning about how people used to do it, and understanding the antique objects used to do it, brings a level of satisfaction and a depth of understanding that truly makes your home interesting and unique. (Our friends who visit only rarely always want a tour of our "Garage of Wonders" to get a glimpse into what the current projects and passions are -- and we love showing off our interests and indulging our love of lecturing.)

In our steampunk home, this means our interests tend toward the electrical or the alchemical. The electrical because we're both software engineers -- at it's most elemental the blinking of electrical signals and the moving around of ideas through the aether of the mind -- so gauges for the fridge that were used for measuring milliamperes and microamperes on some old piece of equipment brings a frisson of delight every time we look at them or the building of a mad scientist light reminds us of just how electrical circuits work.

This is a bit of a lecture laden departure from my normal sort of post, but at best it will give you something to ruminate on, and at worst you can just ignore it.

Dialogues between filament and bulb

Artist and glassblower Dylan Kehde Roelofs emailed me about his new collection of hand blown incandescent sculpture (also known as "light bulbs"). Rockets, insects, upside down bulbs, moon walkers -- the collection takes inspiration from a number of natural and industrial forms, while still maintaining a distinctive incandescent light bulb look.



The first question I had -- and all of you, too, I suspect -- is "what do you do when they burn out?" Dylan anticipated this and first takes us to task for focusing on a mundane practicality: The emphasis of these art objects is on their sculptural form and lighting quality, not quantity., before saying that you should be able to get somewhere between 100 and 1000 days out of them: This being said, the filament temperature is slightly lower than that of bulbs rated for 25,000 hours, and about the same as other famously long-lived bulbs. The filament thickness is at least 10 times that of a standard 2000 hour bulb. The initial inrush of current from being switched on, and vibration are the worst enemies of these sculptural filaments, since the rate of evaporation is several orders of magnitude lower that a standard bulb. Test bulbs approaching 2500 hours of age are not even beginning to show signs of darkening from this evaporation.



How does he make them? These are lampworked at an oxy-propane (hot!) torch from raw pyrex tubing stock. I do all of the filament winding and glass-to-metal seals on the tungsten (with uranium glass! Oh boy!) myself, as well as the vacuum processing.

I wondered where he got the sockets (or did he make those, too?!). Dylan says
I got the little sockets after begging to every lighting company in the book. Those sympathetic to the cause of Mad Science are occasionally willing to send 'samples'.

It's taken Dylan years to acquire the knowledge to build these. He is a Mad Scientist by career, a daguerreotypist, and, unlike the rest of us (who merely want to be), he actually is an alchemist -- he makes 16th century glass distillation equipment and uses it!

Thanks for sharing these with us, Dylan, and for answering my inquiries. I'm looking forward to what you do next!

Another Small Elegant Bathroom Design

For Purple color lover, just change the color of bathroom design to purple, so, it's look more elegant

Small Elegant Bathroom Design

An elegant bathroom is not always large and complete, use small bathtub and small closet also can make our bathroom looks like an elegant bathroom, use special material for the wall and the floor, this design use small pieces of ceramic to make the wall so detail built.
Use match color between bathtub, closet and other decorations. The picture is taken from www.3d-photorealism.eu, created by Claudiu Matei. Visit www.3d-photorealism.eu to get more informations.

Steampunk Treehouse Tour

Boing Boing TV has a wonderful tour of the Steampunk Treehouse up today. According to one of the creators, it's "what a tree would look like if built by people who had never seen one"



Make sure you watch it through -- the interior shots (I adore the occuli!) are in the second half.

Xeni visits the Steampunk Tree House, a 40+-foot-tall interactive sculpture created by a group of artists in Oakland, CA, and assembled for the first time at Burning Man. More than 60 people helped to create it, and in today's episode, you'll hear from project participants Alan Rorie, Nathaniel Taylor, and David Shulman.

Some design details to watch for:

• Iron (or possibly steel?) scrollwork over the door
• Valve as a flower face
• What feel to me like doorbell surrounds used a miniature frames
• The steam whistle levers remind me of the gear shift in my Dad's dump trucks.
• I love the warning sign: "Please operate the trioperator Delicately. It may Explode" in a genteel script, at an cock-eyed angle.
• The demilune iron balcony is lovely
  

Original post on Boing Boing TV.

Dr. Kim's "Office"

It all happened by accident... (Vices always do, don't they?) Dr. Kim was buying a sound booth from an elderly doctor friend.




When I arrived at his office to pick up the booth, he gave me a lot of the big, basic pieces. The vintage medical pieces were his and his father's (who was also a physician - and was, in fact, a patient of Sigmund Freud!) Almost everything works, the otoscopes light up, and the rolling cart has a working suction pump.




My students and friends found out I had the 'office' and started to contribute a lot of the other pieces including the stainless bedpans, old books, and signs. One friend just donated a (non-functional) X-Ray machine just last year. Who knew there was so much old medical stuff out there?!


The wooden medicine cabinet has a lot of patent/chinese medicines and cures donated by friends.

While I wasn't sure I wanted to know, but I asked the good doctor what he did in this lab.

It doesn't really have a practical application now, although I did use it as a 'lab' for doing makeup and visual F/X for a while; It's pretty much just an "art installation" at this point (I'm sorry to say: I'm not really a mad scientist...) although there will be a film being shot in it later this year; and it's been a set for various other shoots in the past.



He also had some advice (he is a professional F/X person, after all) on getting some of these effects in your own lab/workshop/home:

I would describe the paint as: "an industrial green, that was sunk with the Titanic, and then recovered." The running rust on the walls was done by daubing brown on the green base, and then spraying lightly with water so the brown paint would run down. As I add the wall mount items, I position them to match the position of the stains.

The frames of the windows and door were painted with a metallic base and then layered with an oxidizer used to create real rust. The rusty medicine cabinet was actually a new galvanized piece from Ikea, also sprayed with the oxidizer to create the rust.


Incredible, isn't it? There's a couple more pictures on Dr. Kim's website.

Update: Dr. Kim sent along a panoramic view for our enjoyment. (Click to get a bigger version...)

From left to right you can see: my (all too modern) computer monitor; the vintage floor-standing medicine cabinet (filled with Asian cure-alls); the victims' 'table-of-doom'; the 'rusty' medicine cabinet; otoscope; the rolling 'suction' cabinet; vintage "Vornado" fan; phone; hydraulic chair; radium storage (glows green in the dark!); antique books and bedpan/urinal set (above); and above the clock, you can see a tiny picture of the two original doctors, as well as a framed photographic diptych of Dr. Freud.

Uplift the Body and Soul with Bathroom Design Ideas

Bathroom space planning is part of the usual interior design services carried out by Red Square. In addition to providing functional bathroom design ideas, Red Square uses natural light and discreet features to instill a calming ambience, making this a very special place in which to relax.

Materials, such as marble, stone and tiles are selected to give bathrooms a whole new appearance. The installation of additional features such as under-floor heating makes the bathroom experience much more pleasurable and Red Square's interior designers show how glass, mirrors and the latest contemporary fixtures and fittings can transform this area of the home into something really special.


Adopted from: www.the-interior-designers.co.uk, visit and buy it there!

There a little person who want to design their kitchen with red color. Naturally, red Square utilises its expertise in interior design and interior architecture to create stylish bespoke kitchens that cater for a wide range of tastes.

Whether somebody want their new kitchen to incorporate an elegant dining area, or a zone for media, TV, or cosy seating, Red Square has the knowledge and experience to develop innovative designs that suit complex lifestyle requirements.

It is unusual, nowadays, for the kitchen to be used solely for cooking and eating. Busy cooks often want to be able to keep an eye on children, help with homework or socialise with guests while preparing food.

Red Square interior designers spend time understanding how someone expect to use their new kitchen space. The interior design brief is vital, as it enables clients to discuss their kitchen design ideas with Red Square interior designers and interior architects. Each Red Square kitchen design is created to suit individual personal needs and style preferences and no two interior design solutions are the same.

This design are adopted from www.the-interior-designers.co.uk, You can order this design there.

Favorite Kitchen

How about this designs, yeah, these are kitchen designs, adopted from www.3d-photorealism.eu, the pictures were created by Claudiu Matei, These design are kitchen designs, imagine this design is your real kitchen, you can feel more comfort with large and clean kitchen room, the floor, wall and roof are used similar color and material, so they are matched. These are several small dinning table set with small round table, there are a sofa set to use waiting the food ready, so, happy imagining!

Back to Nature with Traditional Room Design

How about this design, Firstly I saw this picture, I want to say, why don't we create an antique interior design with natural sense?, maybe, with this picture you can imagine to create this one for your house or uour office, or maybe for your costumer.
This picture was adopted from www.summerhouse.com.au, there are a lot of another design with similar theme. So, let's reduce global warming by designing room with back to nature.

Big Family Dinning Room

Dinning room, is an important room today, the most important thing to design dinning room is the number or the chair and the size of the table, luxury or simplify? is not the main problem, just use simplify design for a big family dinning room, locate the dinning table near with kitchen, so the food is still warm when it is ready to eat.

Riveted Coffee Table

Just ran across this table on the website of French antique company le Grenier.

You have to inquire for a price, and it's in France. Lots of other interesting things on their website.

Thanks to Apartment Therapy for pointing out le Grenier.

Steampunk Range Hoods from Archive Designs

Ran across these range hoods by Archive Designs in a magazine yesterday.



Hammered nickel and distressed steel... it reminds me of an iron foundry (or something that would be in Lord Iron's house in Michael Moorcock's Silverheart)

He has a number of other interesting designs.

Some very industrial looking...
Beaten iron with hammered brass straps and rivets.

Others a bit more rustic...
Hammered copper with forged steel straps.

I really like this look -- trying to do something similar would be great for a fridge (more on that soon!), or a wall.

The site also has fireplace doors and screens, mailboxes, switchplates, and more fun things, but these were the most steampunk looking of the bunch.

Sliding Glass Door, Adopted from Japanese Traditional Door Design

Designing sliding door for our house or office is one of the choice for who loved traditional sense door, especially Japanese door design, adopted from those design, we can use more strength material but not weight enough, so we can choose resistant aluminum. With this material, we can make clean design and incredible performance. I said that strength is important, other reason is with this sliding door, we can design door with simplified installation that does not require numerous trims, clips and accessories. So we can reduce significant cost savings from the simple frame assembly, minimum number of parts and a single row of fasteners.
Sliding door works well in both new construction and retrofit applications, so, don't be afraid to use this design.
One of several manufacturer of aluminum sliding door is CGI Window & Doors with their product Series 560 Sliding Glass Door, CGI has a strong reputation for offering architectural-grade impact windows and doors with unique features and high-quality construction that exceed industry standards. CGI products have been specified and installed in some of the most prestigious residential and commercial projects in South Florida, including Fisher Island and the Palm Beach Breakers. Established in 1992, the company was the first impact window and door manufacturer to offer PVB laminated glass designed exclusively to meet the Miami-Dade County impact-resistant protocols.

Warm colors, the new trend color of 2008

The green home design was the big trend in 2007,with too cool minimalism green color, but now in 2008, we can see and wait, there are several new color trend for home design, warm color.
Here's what a sample of interior designers and industry insiders say you should be shopping for:

• Beware of pseudo green

Manhattan-based interior designer Claire McGovern of McGovern Design House said green design could be the most important design change of 2008, as long as it's done right and not to fit a trend. "Most start-up design companies are acknowledging the need, and most educated customers are asking about the green qualifications of a furniture piece," she said

• Color, texture, layers

Minimalist white and beige are being pushed out in favor of color, textures and layers. There is a move toward warmer colors and away from the shininess and flatness of interiors over the last few years.

• Mix it up

There is a big move away from "themed" rooms, in which everything must comply with an overall motif, such as country kitchen or a maritime-themed bedroom, so, people can be traditional but we are going to see more mixes.

Which trends do you like, you can considering with this.
source:www.chicagotribune.com, by Sean O'Driscoll, ASSOCIATED PRESS

Ugly can be fixed

Buying a house that needs work, then fixing it up yourself can help turn a nightmare into a dream.
A can of paint can be your best friend when you buy your first home, as Nadia Abuseif and Brad Hughes discovered after moving into a modest 1920s house last month.

They're glad they listened when their real estate agent kept telling them, "Ugly can be fixed."

They bought near St. Clair Ave. and Dufferin St. – a six-room home with a basement apartment for Abuseif's mother.

Hughes, a research analyst with IDC Canada, and Abuseif, an IT guru for TD Bank, met agent Wally Brazy at an open house. With his guidance, it took only three weeks to buy a house.
source:www.thestar.com

Improve Hidden Space at Your House with Attic

Attic and the room under the upstairs are seldom to exploited to be favorite room, so, why don't we use them to expanding the room functions.

With land costs and provincial policies resulting in ever-shrinking building lots, builders and homeowners are being forced to transform redundant areas of homes into usable living space. The popular open-concept floor plan effectively eliminated hallways and foyers that consumed viable living space. And of course the previously maligned basement is now an integral part of a home.

So how about all the crawlspace in the roof, traditionally known as the attic? Although older homes continue to have their attics retrofitted, newer homes pose challenges the industry may need to address.

When converting your attic into living space, it's important to be realistic about its dimensions. Although it wouldn't take much to create that stunning his-and-hers walk-in closet above the master bedroom, it'll be a little more challenging, if not impossible, to create a billiards room.

source: www.newinhomes.com

Minimalist Bath Room

For small home owner, just don't worry, by designing minimalist rooms we can improve our room functions, such as, locate the shower room near the closet, or use minimalist bathroom accessories.
To improve the room large sense, use more lighting with natural lighting. Use clear roof material likes glass or fiber, so we can maximize the room lighting. Use small closet and small shower room.

Founding Your Perfect Home

What images should I look for?
As a rule most people select images that mean something to them. Some of the more popular images today include sepia photographs, Tuscan landscapes, large flowers, Muskoka scenes, wildlife prints, and abstracts. The common thread that ties all of these varied subjects together is the colours the artists have used in their palettes.

"In the past two years we have discovered that a majority of people are selecting art to go with their décor," says Deena Pantelidis-Kowalski of Select Art Galleries. "Today's trends dictate a minimalist look in art as well as framing, whatever the choice of subject."

Photography, especially black and white, is also growing in popularity among art enthusiasts and decorators alike. Original photography at affordable prices can be found on websites such as www.wallkandy.com. Shoppers can choose from more than 100 original prints from locales including Paris, Prague, and New York and frame the image right on the site. Each city comes as a series, so finding six or seven prints to fill an entire wall is a piece of cake.

Source: www.newinhomes.com

Library and Air Ship of Genomo

Found via a link by Angelus on the steamfashion community, these lovely paintings by Tom Kidd of Genomo -- a "a state of mind, a craving for adventure, the need to travel into unknown territory just to see what is there, the desire to have new experiences and to work with great people – maybe, even, dare to be great yourself. "

There are lots of paintings on the website, but these are two of the most appealing interiors. To the left is Peale's library:

With the early morning light sparkling against his marble floor, deep in his musty library, with gargoyles perched above and shelves of books packed tightly below Charles Wilson Peale III searches through documents....

There's also the navigation gondola of HMAS Wyeth. It reminds me of Paris, in an Eiffel Tower/Metro Station iron work sort of way.


Related: Airship Fantasy Room