Neat Features

Question: Why do doors have to be boring?

Answer: They don’t when they’re bright yellow and actually a barn door for your bathroom.

Dana Miller at House * Tweaking shows us that doors can be functional and fun.  (Although I must admit, that’s not really a sentence I ever imagined myself typing!).

She took wood from a fence and recycled it into a sliding door for the master bathroom.  And then painted it a bold yellow.

I know this sounds weird, but this really is one of the coolest doors I’ve seen.  I actually feel inspired by this door.  (Again, weird.)  But hey, what can I say, I love this door!

image by Dana Miller from House * Tweaking

I have cats. And while most people think that sounds “fun” or “cute”, I see it in a different light. Because my cats are certified plant assassins.  Every plant I’ve ever brought home, whether potted or a dozen roses for my wife, end up with hundreds of tiny teeth marks in them by morning.

Some end up far, far worse.

Personally I’d love to have some plants.  Not only can they really add a sense of style, but they can actually improve the air quality of your house.  Considering we’re heading into allergy season here in Cincinnati, I’m willing to try just about anything to stop sneezing.

That’s why I am so intrigued by the Wally Pocket system.  (Not to be confused with the Disney flick.)  I think it might stop my cats from being vegetarians and maybe even get rid of a bit of house air pollution.  Plus it’s a pretty simple DIY project.

What do you think?

It seems that when you own a home, your work is never done.  Perhaps that’s something that should be put in one of the documents you sign at closing?

But I have no one to blame but myself.  I’ve found that I actually enjoy making home improvements.  As much as I love my job and writing for things like Neat Features, there’s something rewarding about being able see, touch (and yes, sometimes smell) a project coming together.

That’s how it is with my newest ambition: a complete installation of a wired internet network.  For the most part this should be “easy”.  However my house is 100 years old, and so far nothing has gone “easily.”  But there has to be a first time, right?!

While I look forward to creating a network to stream music and movies around my house, I’m still not thrilled at the idea of crawling through my attic to drill holes into the ceiling.  So perhaps instead of all that work behind the walls, my wife will let me do something like this?

More pictures can be found on the highly create Maisie Maud website.  Do you have a Neat Feature of your own? Consider submitting it, and we may post it.

Sometimes I’m just amazed at people’s creativity. Actually I spend a large amount of time amazed by people’s creativity. And then quickly followed up with a lot of squinting to see if I can figure out how they did that.

That was pretty much my reaction when I saw this bed on Kiki Creates. Now like most people, I have a bed. In fact, I have several (although I only sleep on one at a time.) Some of these beds need their frames replaced. Others could just be “modernized.” So I’ve been casually checking out bed frames to see what’s out there.

Now I know that one of the trends right now is to give your bed a presence through giving the frame a headboard. Sometimes it’s suggested you use cloth. Other times it’s something that comes with the frame. However, this is the first time I’ve ever seen a headboard made out of … well see if you can guess what that headboard is made from.

Did you figure it out? (or are you cheating to see the answer?) That’s right she used sets of shutters. Shutters. Like the things you see on the outside of houses. Maybe this is really common and I just don’t know about it. But as someone who’s “in the know” I’m really impressed.

I’ve mentioned before that in my old house I’m on an eternal quest to find space to store stuff.  We don’t have a ton of things, but even without a lot of stuff, we really miss having closets.  But with a lack of closets comes a lack of places to put coats, shoes, keys, gloves, etc…

And as winter becomes, those things become more important!

That’s what I love about this design by Rambling Renovators.  They’ve taken something that was non-functional, from a storage standpoint, and built upon it by adding some convenient storage.  (Check out the before and after pictures.)

It’s a simple, yet brilliant design solution to an all-too-common problem for older homes.

Images come from Rambling Renovators (a really great site by the way.) Do you have a Neat Feature of your own? Consider submitting it, and we may post it.

Not that long ago I bought an old house.  How old?  101 years.  Surprisingly 100 years ago they didn’t envision computers, HDTV, insulation, or other conveniences (like closets).  This means that just about every day I am confronted by some new challenge.  Some days it’s electrical (my kingdom for a grounded outlet!).  Other days it’s just an issue of comfort (insulation) or convenience (closets).

But what I’m most interested in is bringing my 101 year old house up to 21st century technology standards.  That’s why I was really excited to see that Klipsch is making a wireless speaker that screw into existing canned light recesses!

This is pure genius as far as I’m concerned.

Is it the best audio quality?  Well reviews say it’s not ideal.  But it solves a major problem for people who own older houses – namely no need to run speaker wire or dig through old plaster walls.

The biggest drawback is their price.  These things aren’t exactly cheap.

I realize these Klipsch LightSpeakers aren’t your traditional Neat Feature.  However I’m willing to make an exception.  Because I don’t know about you, but I think it’s pretty neat to not spend my whole weekend patching plaster walls!

Do you have a Neat Feature of your own? Consider submitting it, and we may post it.

One of the things I love is how creative people are.  A while back I wrote about wall decals that you could use to cover cracks in your walls by using decals of leaves and birds to make your wall cracks into a piece of art.  (Okay, so maybe I use the term “art” loosely!)  And just when you think things can’t get any more original, you see that someone has developed 8-bit NES goodness for their walls.

Blik is a company that offers wall decals of all kind of old school gaming.  Two of my favorites are Space Invaders and Super Mario Brothers.

Now I’m not sure that this would exactly work in my house.  It might, however, be just the sort of thing I’d do in my kids room.  It might even be something for a dorm room.  But at the end of the day, it just comes down to being a very cool neat feature.

Image credit: Blik (seriously you need to check them out.) Do you have a Neat Feature of your own? Consider submitting it, and we may post it.

We’ve all seen movies where someone hides a treasure map in a book that’s pages have been cut out.  Or a movie where a floor has a trap door that holds a stash of jewelry.  These work (in theory) because we can’t find them.  There is only one book out of a hundred that holds the money.  Or only one floor board out of an entire house that contains the deed to the mortgage.

The idea is that it will take countless hours looking for those things, so we don’t bother – it’s just too difficult.

Enter the Secret Stash Project by Yi-Ting Cheng.

The Secret Stash Project is all about hiding things in plain sight.  Are you leaving your desk for a few minutes and want to leave your iPod behind?  Stick it under a glass of milk.  Do you need a place to leave your computer over night so that someone doesn’t walk off with it?  Put it in the side panel of your desk.  Have a $20 bill that you want to leave for a friend?  Attach it to a map marker.

Now I’m not sure this will stop anyone who is determined, or someone who can watch you all the time.  But I bet it works against the casual thief.

And hey, even if it doesn’t do anything, it’s still more fun than throwing your headphones into a drawer!

Do you have a Neat Feature of your own? Consider submitting it, and we may post it.

I have a five year old daughter at home.  And that means one thing: a mess.  There is stuff everywhere.  It’s as if she’s genetically designed to leave a wake of destruction behind her.  Clothes on the steps.  Crayons under the table.  Barbie’s on top of the TV (the sacrilege!)  It goes on and on.

At first we thought this would be a never ending battle.  It might even be the equivalent of Star Trek’s Kobayashi Maru (an unwinnable test.)  But then we bought a house.  Realizing a house was just a larger place for a mess to develop, we decided our very first DIY project would be to get her room organized and painted.

It was our (apparently foolish) belief that our daughter would want to play more in her room, and therefore bring less of the mess to the rest of the house.

While I think that was a good strategy, it hasn’t completely solved the problem.  And on some days, it hasn’t even made a dent.  The challenge we have is that our house is 101 years old, which means limited storage and play-space in that room.

That’s when I came across this house.

While it has many normal features for a house, there’s one feature that really stands out.  One of the bedrooms has a built-in playroom/fort/cave!

The moment I saw this, I realized it would be perfect for anyone with a young kid.  You could easily turn it into a fort, spaceship, castle, Barbie-ville, or whatever your kid is into.  Plus, this is something I always wanted as a kid.  I forever was planning (or building) tree forts.  I never dreamed I could have one in my own room.  It’s just too cool.

Do you have a Neat Feature of your own? Consider submitting it, and we may post it.

It’s hard to believe but 2010 is approaching a close.  And with all end of the year activities it’s time to start thinking about Fall and Winter (at least in the northern hemisphere!)  Yes.  That sounds depressing to me as well.

Fortunately there are a few things you can do to help with the transition.  And while none of these are exactly “fun” they all help keep our homes maintained and our lives a little better.

1. Seal Air Gaps – Heating prices have been high for a long time now.  Perhaps they will never go lower.  Which means we need to get serious about sealing up all those loose air gaps around our windows, under our doors and along the floors.  A tube of $5 caulk goes a long way to reducing your energy bill.  Plus, doesn’t it feel good to make your house a bit more efficient?

2. Check House Exterior – If you’re in the hot, warm parts of the country, or experiencing a hot summer like we did here in Cincinnati, then you probably haven’t walked around your house recently.  Now that September is (theoretically) bringing cooler air, maybe it’s time to see what the foundation looks like.  Are there new cracks on the sidewalk?  Any shingles need replacing before winter?  Now’s the time to take that exterior house tour!

3. Fall Cleaning? – It used to be you needed to do “spring cleaning” because it was a good time to empty your house of all the dirty air, grime, and dust that built up over a few months of closed windows and burning fires.  But these days most of us run our AC units just as much as our heat.  That means it’s a good time to clean up your house.

Part of what we do around here at Neat Features is help you understand all the fun and neat parts of your own home.  But let’s face it – if your home is falling apart you’re not very likely to notice them!  So go pick a week this month and work on these three tasks.  And then sit back.  Relax.  And enjoy your home’s own neat features!

photo provided by flickr user dan4th