Neat Features

A while back we showed you a room with a pretty elaborate jungle paint job. Perfect for the 7 and under crowd. But what about older kids. (Or the older kid inside all of us?) I don’t know about you, but as cool as the jungle was, I’m not sure I really want to go with the “Welcome to the Jungle” feel.

Well here’s an office that was painted in argyle.

Neat Features don’t have to be expensive, they don’t have to be complex, and you don’t always need an engineering degree to lay them out. Sometimes you just need some paint and tape.

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

I like to work.  In fact, I work a lot.  Sometimes it’s work I get paid for, sometimes it’s work I just enjoy doing for a hobby, and other times it’s work I do on a volunteer basis.  The bottom line is, I always have something going on.  And I like it that way.

But being so busy has its own challenges.  Especially when I head home.  Where do I work?  How do I keep things organized?  How do I keep track of what I am supposed to be doing?  Sure it can be nice to have a home office.  But if you’re there, you know there are distractions – TV, cleaning, and the like.  Plus if you have kids, you can’t always guarantee they are going to stay out of your office.  Do you really want your 5 year old to “improve” your newest report for work with Dora the Explorer stickers?

Because of all this, I’ve been thinking about having a separate room or office.  What got me started on this was seeing a shed on a house that was wired for electricity.  I figured a little bit of renovation and I’d have a perfect place to work.  So since then I’ve been looking for better solutions.  Which led me to this house with it’s small studio / room / office / shed.  (OK, so I don’t really know what to call it.)  But something like this would give me all the benefits of working from home (convenience, relaxed atmosphere, ability to concentrate) with a lot less of the “at home distractions.”

That’s what I would use this space for, how about you?

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

It’s funny how your perception changes.  I’ve seen pictures of painted walls before.  But until I wrote a few weeks ago about “what kid wouldn’t want to sleep and play in this room?” I never really paid attention.  But now, of course, I realize that they are everywhere!  It seems that I can’t help but turn around and see a kids room with playfully painted walls (say that three times fast!).

Take, for instance, this great image of a frog playing.

This particular image is in a Cape Cod house. Now Cape Cod’s tend to feel a little on the small side.  Add the fact that the room itself is only 12×10, and you have a recipe for claustrophobia.  But with the image, and the added sense of depth, it makes the room feel much larger.

I’m starting to wonder if my parents didn’t hold out on me when I was a kid!

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

Some Neat Features appeal to all of us.  Others, though, are just for a select few.  That’s where this Neat Feature falls.  If you like country living, with nature and small woodland creatures hopping about your back yard, then you’re going to want to look somewhere else.  But I grew up in a small, rural town, and woodland creatures aren’t all they are cracked up to be.  I like city life.  And I like to do city stuff.

But even I like to get outside every now and again.  Especially when I’m hanging out with some friends or looking to entertain at home.

The problem has always been lighting at night.  Living in the city means I can’t light a fire.  And giant flood lights take all the charm out of sitting outside.  So what to do?  Well using this simple modification to an existing desk may have solved my problems.

By adding some LED lights you can create a unique atmosphere.  It’s the Goldilocks Effect, not too bright, not too dark.  And, if you get bored of the color, you can always change it.

Sure this isn’t for everyone, but for people looking to spice up their outside areas, this might be just the trick.

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

I once went to a wedding where the grandmother of the bride was asked to give her opinion on what makes a successful marriage.  She said that in her 60 years of marriage, there was only one thing that guaranteed a successful marriage: separate bathrooms.

I’m not sure why that thought rings true.  But every time I go into someone’s house, I now look at their bathroom, and wonder, “how do they both fit in here?”  The modern trend has been to have multiple bathrooms.  But this isn’t always convenient.  Often multiple bathrooms end up being shared with kids or guests, which means we’re back to our original problem.

So if you can’t have separate bathrooms, maybe the next best thing is separate sides.

As you can see in the picture you have two matching counters, with matching cabinets.  It’s the symmetry of the whole room that really appeals to me.  You can also see on the right a nice shower tucked away for those of us who don’t actually like to sit in bathtubs.  The other amazing feature?  The round windows, which let in all that natural light (although after this winter in Cincinnati, I’m not sure I remember what natural light looks like.)

So what do you think?  Does a separate bathroom play into your marriage success?

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

The great thing about Neat Features is that they can be anywhere and be just about anything. Take this room for example. We all have walls, but not all of us have jungles!

Even the ceiling gets into the act with some nice blue sky and clouds. I don’t know about you, but with all the grey snowy long winter we’ve had here in Cincinnati, I think I could live with a nice sky blue ceiling!

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

I’m currently in the process of moving.  Well sort of.  I’m in the process of planning on moving.  Which means I have a lot of major decisions to make.  Do I continue renting?  Do I buy a house?  What does the economy look like now?  How about in 6 months?

There are so many choices that I’ve really wanted a way to narrow down what I’m looking for.  That’s why I’ve come up with three things I think any “great room” needs to have.

• Worth living in – If you don’t want to spend time there – it’s not a great room!
• Attitude – Great rooms have attitude. They make people stop and notice.
• Personality – What’s a room worth if it doesn’t match your personality?

Let’s face it.  We spend a lot of time in our homes.  That’s the reason we bought them after all.  They are a place to have memories.  We remember them as our first house, or where our kids grew up.  Or maybe even where we watched that really awesome movie.

That’s why great rooms are so important.  They give us a place to experience all of those things.  Now not all of us are going to live in a fancy high-rise penthouse or a multimillion dollar house.  The rest of us are going to have to choose something a bit different.

But just because we can’t live in a Manhattan penthouse, doesn’t mean we can’t experience our own great room.  With just a little bit of work, and some creativity, every house can have a neat feature to call its own.

In the end, great rooms are all about the things that are uniquely you. They fit your personality, your attitude, and they make you want to be there.

Those are the things I want to have no matter where I am living in 6 months!

Most of us have grown up playing board games.  I know I personally started playing Risk when I was 7 or 8.  I still remember sitting outside on the porch playing with some friends.  Eventually Risk gave way to games like Monopoly, Clue and Trivial Pursuit.  But there is something special about playing board games.  Something that reminds us of a different era.  It brings us back to our childhood.

Of course, there are those of us who still love our board games (or maybe we just have kids that do).  So we find ourselves playing Monopoly or Sorry on a regular basis.

The problem is, board games take up a lot of space.  There is no easy place to put them.  If you stick them in a closet they are quickly forgotten.  If you put them on a shelf, they are hard to get to and awkward to put away.

So what do we do?

Well one solution is to hang them on your walls.  That’s exactly what Infarrantly Creative did.  What was once a cluttered mess has become a neat feature!

I don’t know about you, but this makes me want to run to my nearest home good store and pick  up a few supplies!

For more pictures, and step-by-step instructions for how to create your own game board storage art, head on over to Infarrantly Creative.

We’ve all experienced it. That sense of recognition. A feeling of awe. And yes, a bit of “I want that too!”

It’s what happens when we see something unique. Something interesting.

A Neat Feature if you will.

And that’s what this website is all about. It’s a place to explore Neat Features. Whether they are houses, mailboxes, kitchens, or anything else that you can imagine. If it’s a neat feature of a living space, then that’s what we are about.

So we hope that you will join us in pointing out the Neat Features in your life.