Think "eco-friendly home design" and a lot of different options come to mind, but I'm willing to bet fruit pits as flooring isn't one of them.
Alla le Roux feels differently however, and after being inspired by personal experience has started a business (Stone Fruit Floors) that designs and sells handmade flooring created out of peach pits. The pits are sanded down (to get rid of sharp edges and make them more comfortable to walk on) and set into the floor by hand along with glue, sand, and a resin mixture. The end result looks like a strange mix between hardwood, tile, and linoleum.
Interesting... I'm not really sure what else to say about this!
Eco-Friendly Flooring, a company whose name is self-explanatory, also deals in recycled backsplashes. They have created aluminum and brass tiles from 100% recycled metal as well as creating backsplashes from recycled glass tiles. They are based in Wisconsin and provide installation services for throughout Wisconsin, Minnesota, and northern Illinois. For clients outside of this area, they can help you find a contractor or provide you with installation instructions. The metal tiles start at $35/sq.ft. for aluminum tiles, $70/sq.ft. for brass tiles. The tiles are easy to clean and can be ordered in either a polished matte or sandblasted rough finish. They also sell sinks made from recycled metal.
Want a wine cellar but don't have a basement or a spare room to dedicate to your love of the grape, Closet Wine Cellars specializes in putting small cellars into a variety of places. You find the room, they'll make it work whether it is a closet, wall or storage space. The systems can be customized to your design style and refrigerated units are available. Their racking system makes it easy to see the labels. The company is based in Southern California, the land of no basements, so they have their work cut out for them. At least, given recent weather, they can start with the coat closet as seems to be the case in the picture here.
The driveway might not be high on your list of home improvements but it is one of the first things people see when pulling up to your house. Driveway Impressions is a franchise business throughout the country that focuses on making driveways beautiful. The treatment involves proprietary decorative paving system that uses imprinted asphalt products to create stamped asphalt driveways that replicated other paving surfaces such as brick, cobblestone or slate. You can also add accent pieces like patterns and numbers. The driveways can be placed over existing driveways or created new and it is resistant to weeds and the environment.
This unique light will definitely appeal to wine lovers. The aptly named Pinot lights designed by B.Lux highlight an inner glass which is available in white or red. Each center glass head is at the intersection of two planes of polished clear glass. The light has stainless steel trim and is available as a single suspension as well as two or three heads suspended by a single mount rail. The single pendant light sells for $444.60 and there are two types of wall sconces one with the glass frames that costs $383.40 and another without for $336.60.
The cool thing about this sink is that there is no visible drain. The Ebb sink from Neo-Metro is a one-piece basin with a sloped surface that leads to a concealed drain. The console for the sink is available in resin or glass which creates a stunning setting for this unique piece. Prices for the basin alone start at $1,488. It looks gorgeous but imagine trying to clear a clog out of this thing.
Wow, this is so cool. The tiles shown here are Moving Color glass tiles which are designed to change color when warm water or any radiant heat source effects them. The tiles come in three ttypes, Northern Lights, shown here, which appear black at room temperature and move through the color spectrum, Watercolor which come in eight colors and shift from colored to colorless when exposed to heat and Tye Dye which mimics the look of a tie-die shirt. One square foot of tile costs $180.
We've seen plenty of rain showerheads but the Vola shower concept offers a similar experience but with a
wider reach. The shower head can deliver up to 25 liters per minute. It comes in polished or brushed chrome. It
won the Good Design award in 2005. If you need a lot of water pounding down on you in a gentle cascade, this or the giant Hansgrohe are your best bests.
If you tend to avoid your own reflection in
the bathroom mirror in the morning this is not the sink for you. The Reflection sink from Chicago-based La Cava Design
is made of satin stainless steel that gleams like a mirror. The wall mounted double vanity shown here has a wood frame
that is available in a choice of wenge, pickled oak or ash gray. It sells for $8,400.
$4,000 for door pulls? Martin Pierce's door handles are more art than hardware.
His unique designs take their inspiration from the plant and animal world. He makes the original design in jeweler's
wax and a lost wax process is used to cast the bronze. The process has to be repeated for each piece. Pierce also makes
stunningly beautiful wood furniture that uses similar motifs. The handles make their debut at the Kitchen and Bath
Industry Show in Chicago.
Zephyr's Ellica Collection of kitchen ventilation hoods is for those
who don't want their designer kitchen marred by a big ugly range hood. Their line of sleek artistic ventilation systems
includes the Om range hood shown here. The Om has a circle in the center which is ringed with intake holes to suck in
the smoke. It has a 450-cfm blower and has an air purifier so that air is recirculated. The hood has four lights in the
stainless steel bar on top. The price for the Zephyr Om is about $3,900. A great option for kitchen islands is the
Menhir which takes its name from monolithic prehistoric structures. The simple column is composed of two convex
stainless steel wings and also has halogen lighting. It sells for $3500. A picture of the Menhir is after the jump.
There's probably aren't a lot of bathrooms that
this would work in but it could be charming in a retro bathroom. The Bel Air faucet collection from takes its
design cues from 1950s sci-fi comic books. It's the latest from Lefroy
Brooks which specializes in all sorts of fixtures with vintage appeal.
A new blog devoted to lighting, Pimp Lighting alerted us to the unique lighting options from Murano Designer Lighting. They fell for the Sole line which uses
gorgeous Murano glass in extravagantly colorful starburst creations that can cost up to $39,900 for a 98"
chandelier and demand an equally impressive setting (a marble foyer perhaps). A lot less pricey and oddly charming are
the Nido lights which look like glowing eggs in metal nests. They are part of Minital Lux's series of lights which
mimic natural shapes. The Nido lights sell for $390 to $2,090.
The Kohler DTV is the shower system for control freaks. The DTV
system includes a digital interface that lets you pre-set your preferences including massage and temperature
selections. You can customize different shower settings for various experiences and family members and create a shower
that goes from hot to cold or vice versa. The system can handle up to eight showerheads, handshowers and bodysprays and
Kohler has created six configurations of shower design. The system costs around $2,000 depending on
features. The Kohler DTV system will officially launch at the Kitchen/Bath Industry Show in Chicago, April 21-23.
We've covered fossil countertops from Wyoming before and
let's check out Maison Sijilmassa, a New York-based company that sells
stones from sourced from 450 million year-old prehistoric Sahara sea fossil stone found in Morocco.Their latest
collection includes floor tiles and slabs as well as sinks and tables. The fossils are available in five general tones
ranging from black to bordeaux red. The fossils are quarried from ancient seabeds of the prehistoric Paleo-Tethys and
Tethys seas that are now part of the Sahara desert. The stone features a wide variety of fossilized orthoceras
(rocket-shaped remains) and ammonites (spiral shapes). Their website has more pictures of the new designs
available for Spring 2006.
