Working from home is becoming a more and more popular way to do business, and although it certainly has its perks for some finding the peace and quiet needed to work in a house full of kids and pets is near impossible. Enter the Archipod Garden Office, built by a company in the UK and made to be dropped off and assembled right in your own backyard. Electric, telephone, and water ready, the 'Pod' features a large dometop skylight and several round windows for natural light, plus several dimmable interior spotlights and concealed mood lighting. The work area consists of special sound-muting insulation, an ergonomic semi-circular desk in sleek white and bespoke drawer units and hardwood veneer desktop options available. The outside is covered in Western Red Cedar shingles and features a fun gullwing door that opens easily with gas strut assistance. A fun but pricey home office at £12,000+.

Via Dvice

We've seen our fair share of furniture designed to look like cars, but this one's got to take the cake. Created by Bulgarian interior designer Alexander Christoff, this chair was styled to look like a Formula One race car, but ergonomically shaped to cradle the contours of the human body instead of accelerate down straightaways and grip around hairpin turns.

It's made of fiberglass with chrome legs at the back and an adjustable, upholstered headrest. No word on availability, but as we've discovered, everything's available...for a price. And short of a megayacht in the Monte Carlo harbor, we can't think of a better place to watch the Monaco Grand Prix this year.

Lafco New York has just the thing to help shopping mavens destress after a tough day of swiping the Amex -- a new collection of eight candles named after the world's most famous shopping streets. Appropriately named the Avenue Candle Collection, the collection comprises Canton Road, Ave Montaigne, Bloor Street, Madison Avenue, Via Condotti, Bond Street, Stoleschnikov, and Bahnhofstrasse. All boast 75 - 85 hours burn time from a clean-burning soy wax blend, and the hand-blown glass vessels are hand-dipped in platinum or gold. $48 each

Although there's no hard and fast science that says everyone will react in a certain way to a certain color, there is something very real about the psychology of color and no doubt that certain colors tend to elicit certain emotions, moods, and even physical feelings. Because of this impact choosing the right colors for your interior design scheme is about so much more than just which swatches and samples you think look pretty together.

Warm vs Cool
Colors are divided into two groups: warm and cool. Reds, yellows, and shades of orange are warm colors and are known to stimulate and excite, while blues, greens, and purples are cool colors because they have a relaxing and calming affect. In general warm colors work well in places where there should be activity and interaction, like the kitchen and living room, and cool colors are most appreciated in rooms where the aim is relaxation and calmness, like the bedroom and bathroom.

That's not to say you can't mix things up and put a relaxing color somewhere busy -- my mom has green in her living room and it's still the lively hub of the house, although I do find the walls relaxing to look at. Here are some basics about each of the major color groups:

Having all the correct toys has always been a part of the luxury lifestyle. Many of those who work hard also enjoy playing hard and want all the fanciest amenities brought right into their home, private jet or yacht. For those who like to play games Playerati has launched a new gaming table, which the Financial Times has called "The only one of its kind".

GameBar by Playerati is a unique marriage between a leader in the gaming world and the high end European home appliance manufacturer Gorenje. The table cleverly conceals a refrigerated core and with the touch of a button a bar rises from the table dispensing drinks and canapes to you and your guests. When you are done drinking your champagne and eating your goodies just press the remote and the table returns to normal so you can continue play. The bespoke gaming table can be configured to accommodate most games including poker, roulette, black jack and others. Seems like a great novelty item for those who already have the private screening room, personal gym and even better for those areas where space is at a premium such as private jets and yachts. It would be an excellent gift to put in the corner of the gaming aficionado's home office. This gaming table may appeal to developers of luxury casinos, hotels and nightclubs who want to add a special VIP table and give their facility that extra special edge to attract clients.

If you'd like to see the table in person its official debut will be at the International Gaming Expo being held in London's Earl's Court at the end of January.

The price for a Colonial-era silver bowl at a Sotheby's New York sale of Important Americana has astounded antiques lovers. The bowl had an estimate of $400,000 to $800,000 but sold for a hammer price with buyer's premium of $5,906,500. The price was particularly amazing considering that no piece of early American of silver had previously sold for more than $1 million. The bidding was reportedly heated with bids over $3 million batted back and forth between two competitors an anonymous gentleman seated in the room and New York dealer S.J. Shrubsole. Eventually the anonymous bidder won setting a record for American silver and locking in the second highest price ever paid for silver at auction

What makes this bowl so special? Created around 1700-1710 it is probably the largest piece of early eighteenth century American silver currently in existence. It has quite a story behind it, the brandywine bowl descended with the Loyalist family of Commodore Joshua Loring since before the American Revolution and just came to light in England last year. Loring left his mansion in the Jamaica Plain area of Boston in 1774 and hid the large bowl in a well. Loring and his family moved to London in 1776. After the Revolutionary War, his son rescued the bowl and took it to England. It stayed in the family for all these years until the family decided to sell. This bowl was sold with two 19th century letters from members of the Loring family that reveal the bowl's history.

One of London's major antiques dealerships, Sampson and Horne Antiques has announced that they are closing and their entire trading stock will be sold at Bonhams on April 28. The company is closing because one of the founders, Jonathan Horne, is ill and the other partner Christopher Banks has decided to scale back. The auction house specialized in 17th and 18th century English antiques with an emphasis on fine country furniture, English pottery, delftware, creamware and decorative pieces of metalware. The sale will include British folk art and pottery in a wide range of price and is set to bring in as much as £1 million. Other firms in London have closed in recent years, partly due to the economy and partly due to the overall aging of antiques dealers in general.

The last time I checked out the work of Miami-based furniture designer Facundo Poj he was making curvy bamboo designs that extended from the idea of continuing a single stroke of a line on a paper. His latest pieces are quite different. The Machine 87 bamboo collection is all angles. Instead of using curving bamboo plywood layered with nontoxic glue these new pieces are simplicity itself. The Machine 87 bamboo collection is 100 percent bamboo, no nails, no screws, no glue. The assembly is a simple groove joint system with no tools required. The pieces are finished with beeswax. The collection includes both adult and children furniture. The lounger sells for $500, the coffee table is $250 and the kids set with two chairs and a table is $600.

When it comes to pricey linens, it pays to shop the white sales for good deals on quality goods. D. Porthault in on Park Avenue New York City is holding their sale January 18 to February 6. The sale offers discounts from 40 percent to 90 percent off retail prices and and will feature special archival prints made especially available for the White Sale. Items worth a deeply discounted splurge include sheeting, terry, accessories and robes in D. Porthault's signature florals and prints. For example a queen bed set that was $1400 will be $700, shams that were $250 will be $100.

Eden Design's XXXLamp, designed by Bart Lens, is "inspired by the shape of a Chinese lantern." Unlike a Chinese lantern, however, the XXXLamp is more than five feet high and 13 feet across and comes with an equally grand philosophy: with lamps becoming "space defining," the idea is that instead of submitting to the walls of a room, you enter the area aglow and defined by the lantern yet "still retain a sense of the surroundings beyond the boundary."

If you're still with us, the XXXLamp is built in twelve segments so that you can hang just a half or a quarter of the lamp and use mirrors for additional effect, or have the interior panels printed on. It is suspended by a framework similar to that on a hot air balloon and fitted with three white light fixtures, or a suite of variable colored LEDs whose hues can be controlled remotely.

Eden also provides a note on hanging it, if you're already sizing up your salon: fix its lower edge at about shoulder level, so that you duck to enter the illuminated area and, according to the image, um, stand there and read. The XXXLamp isn't on sale yet, but is being prepared for retail markets and will probably have a price tag as impressive as its diameter.

It was synchronicity: you happened to have your camera ready and Mother Nature just happened to look at you in that special way and smile. On your camera's tiny screen it looks divine – like nearly every other shot. But when you get it on your computer you blow it up to its full resolution and you find out... it looks divine. There is no Facebook page nor inkjet printer that can do this image justice. Obviously, it's time for CanvasPop.

That is where you can have your keen timing committed to high quality canvas – you know, just like a real artiste. Upload your photo and then choose from a hefty number of options such as filter effects, like oil painting or hand sketch effect, multiple canvases to create diptychs, triptychs, and quads, and six different types of rolled canvas depths and floating frames. It works even for low-resolution images, or you can send them an image you need scanned, and CanvasPop will send you a free proof to make sure you approve.

Then choose any one of their 14 standard sizes or choose your own custom size, and pretty soon the mailman will be delivering your vision made real. Shipping is free to the U.S., Canada, and the UK, while unbranded drop shipping to the rest of the world requires just $14. With CanvasPop having it made it that easy, a few more moments of inspiration on your part and Cartier-Bresson and Adams might find themselves giving up the parlor for the spare bedroom...

Beginning in the 18th century, English country houses had glass-paned orangeries where exotic plants, flowers and citrus trees flourished throughout the cooler months, providing a haven from the elements for their inhabitants and spaces for entertaining in summer. Their popularity surged during the 19th century when new construction techniques allowed for ever more fantastical structures, but they pretty much disappeared as tastes and styles changed in more modern times. At Tanglewood Conservatories, on the Eastern Shore area of Maryland's Chesapeake Bay, Alan Stein, Nancy Virts and co. aim to recreate some of that bygone elegance. The company designs and builds bespoke turn-of-the-century domes, conservatories, greenhouses and swimming pool enclosures in high style.

Every structure is made by hand at the Tanglewood atelier, and the prices, starting at $175,000, reflect the time, attention and high quality materials that goes into their construction. They can be added to existing houses and mansions or built as part of brand new estates, like this incredible spread in Washington. Some of their well-known clients include Eddie Murphy, director / producer Ron Howard, the Dallas Cowboys' Don Abbey, late Lazard Freres CEO Bruce Wasserstein and interior designer Mario Buatta. Each creation is totally unique; Tanglewood never repeats the same design twice. The fit and finish of a Tanglewood conservatory has more in common with fine furniture than carpentry. Usually constructed of solid mahogany, these are intricate, complex, highly detailed structures, some large enough to hold fully-grown trees. The company also constructs glass and copper domes, roof lanterns and skylights in virtually any size, shape and design.



The Victorians regarded the conservatory as nothing short of a triumph of architecture over nature. Swimming pool enclosures might seem a more modern innovation, but in fact the tradition of building extraordinary structures to enclose both public and private swimming pools is in even older, dating to the great Roman balnea or thermae. Most Roman cities had at least one such building, which was central to the public life of its citizens. Most private villas also included a bath house. The opulent pool enclosure pictured above was constructed for an estate in Kentucky. Tanglewood's sensitivity to form, proportion, materials and detail is evident in its pleasing lines. Their craftsmen are heirs to a 300-year-old craft and woodworking tradition, especially in an area with a long history in boatbuilding. See the gallery for more examples of Tanglewood's high-end designs in various styles.

La Maison Ruinart, the oldest established champagne house in the world, celebrated the 50th anniversary of its 1959 Dom Ruinart Blanc de Blancs in 2009 and decided to honor the occasion by commissioning a work of champagne-related art from Dutch artist Maarten Baas. The Melting Collection Ice Bucket is what resulted, a beautiful shining silver bucket and its lid dissolving helplessly into a puddle on the table. Only 50 will be produced, delivered in a felt-lined leather and wood presentation box complete with a 'made-for-display' water-filled Dom Ruinart bottle. $8,800

Via Acquire

Last summer garden and outdoor entertaining company Smith & Hawken went through a rough time. Corporate parent Scotts Miracle-Gro Company said that it would call in the liquidators for its 56 stores unless the brand was sold. Now comes the news that Target has acquired the Smith & Hawken brand and other intellectual property from Smith & Hawken. Target already sells Smith & Hawken's outdoor furniture and other lines. Financial terms of the deal weren't disclosed but Scotts had bought Smith & Hawken for $68.5 million in 2004.

There's a lot to like about the Park Avenue lifestyle, especially as it is captured in the book "Park Avenue Potluck: Celebrations," published by Rizzoli. This book takes us inside the apartments facing the broad boulevard with a European feel, to tell us, if not everything, then just enough, to entertain Park Avenue style. Hint: there may be a cook for hire involved, and you'll want to get out the china, write place cards, and dust off the napkin rings. As for what you'll be serving: The ladies are not cutting-edge professional chefs, so this is not the place to find culinary revelations on par with "Momofuko." Rather the recipes are for comforting dishes, not too healthy or unhealthy, and presented simply but beautifully. Vetted by New York Times food writer Florence Fabricant, these are gold-plated go-to dishes. And some, such as Coco Kopelman's baked latkes, are a real find.