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Zoom Room – clever hideaway beds

Al — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 02:49:04 +0000

Although I’ve never had the pleasure of owning a fully featured bachelor flat, I know that if I ever were in the position of having to make the most of my space, then this is the bed I’d like to have. It very cleverly hides in the wall when you’re not using it, and because it’s flexible, it hides behind whatever is on the wall it retracts into. This means you can hang a TV on that wall and still have a bed when you need it. Very simple, yet very clever.

Geodesic dome house for sale

Al — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 03:59:52 +0000

While I’m up, and blogging, I thought I might as well blog this: a genuine geodesic dome based house that is currently for sale in Los Angeles. If I had loads of money then I would seriously consider this house, as it looks incredibly cool – with a certain retro chic to it. I might even put up with living in Los Angeles to own such a beauty, but I wouldn’t stay there very long as the sheer awfulness of the place would probably drive me mad very soon. However, you may like LA and its glamour, in which case have a look at this house.

The alien abduction lamp

Al — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 02:08:23 +0000

Clever, simple design often leads to products that make you sit up and take notice. This is clever, and simple, and makes you wonder why nobody thought of the idea first. It’s a lamp in the form of a flying saucer, complete with abduction field emanating out from below. I might just buy one of these, because I like it.

More cool architecture

Al — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 00:54:18 +0000

Here’s a nice, clean site with some interesting articles. I rather like this piece on interesting architecture as it contains the hobbit homes I have blogged before, as well as the rotor house and some more interesting pictures on the container homes that are making use of the USA’s trade deficit in container trade. Have a look at the pretty pictures if nothing else.

Transforming furniture

Al — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 21:54:43 +0000

Here’s some more cool furniture designs that cleverly transform to provide multiple use with the least amount of wasted space. Given the way house prices are still climbing in the UK, then this could be very useful when all a married couple can afford is a small loft apartment. I rather liked the pull out entertainment section that looked like a paper cutout, and the chairs that go flat to hang on the wall.

Steinway Lyngdorf Model D music system

Al — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 00:53:30 +0000

If you are a serious music lover, and you happen to have $150,000 to spare, then I think I’ve found the music system for you. With every part of this system hand built, including speaker stands that weigh over 200Kg each, then you’d expect perfect reproduction, which is helped by having the system professionally installed in your house as part of the cost. Worth every penny, if you win the lottery.

Hobbit homes in Pembrokeshire

Al — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 01:10:14 +0000

I blogged these hobbit style homes before, and I rather liked them all that time ago. It’s good to see that a local council in Wales is now encouraging a development of an eco-village next year, through it’s judicious use of planning policy. If only more councils were as aware of the low environmental impact of such homes, and the benefit to the area that could be made by encouraging such ecologically friendly house design, then maybe more such homes would be built.

Interesting houses

Al — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 00:35:38 +0000

Some people just like to build something different, and in these cases they have built some very different and unusual houses. Some are cool, some are scary and some are just plain weird. There’s not a lot to look at, but what’s there is worth a look.

Ultimate media server?

Al — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 23:59:50 +0000

This has to be close to the ultimate media server system, for the current tech climate anyway. This guy is running a fully loaded X-Serve set-up with 5.6TB of storage at his disposal. That’s a lot of music and video, so much so that he has split hit storage in half, and the other half stores his security camera footage/ He might be paranoid, but he has spent a lot of time and effort in setting up one of the best media streaming systems you could hope for. Amazingly, this set-up has not cost the Earth, although it has cost quite a bit, and would qualify as affordable for most people who wanted such a set-up. The fact that Macs are used throughout is good, although I’m sure that Windows or Linux PC’s could have done the same.

Interesting furniture designs

Al — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 21:36:06 +0000

Here’s a set of interesting furniture designs. Some of which you will probably have seen before, but some will hopefully be new to you. I was rather taken with the float bed, which is expensive but very nicely designed and put together. I’m not sure if it would look as clean and elegant once it had some bedclothes on it, but it’s still fantastic. I also liked the very simple, but remarkably clever design of the Poissonmobile, which can be anything from a tatami to a lounger, yet rolls up for easy carrying. There are more designs on this page for your perusal.