Green Architecture

Treating natural resources respectfully is only one aspect of green house building and green architecture. The JLS Design California forest-based Steel Tree House (above) is one example of a home with a small footprint, minimal site impact, and energy efficiency. This video gives you a bit more insight into the world of green architecture.

Vertical Gardens

Some homes have tiny yard spaces or cramped conditions that restrict the addition of gardens. But don't despair. There are plenty of vertical garden solutions on the market to help anyone combat vertical garden challenges. Secure anchoring to a wall, a protective moisture-proof layer between the "crates" and the wall to prevent mold and rot, the addition of watering, and plants selected for the crates will give you a variety of looks on any exterior or interior wall. The limits to vertical gardening are only in your imagination, and there's an added benefit: vertical gardens loose less moisture to evaporation than their horizontal counterparts. In the following video we see how one garden wall was put together.

Feng Shui & Living Rooms

Your living room, according to the principles of feng shui, should be the main gathering place of the home, filled with comfortable furnishings, your most important artwork and collections, and a wealth corner in the far left corner opposite the main living room entrance. Thanks to Manhattan designer Irwin Weiner ASID for the top photo of a living room project in a home in Scarsdale, NY. Note the handmade glass window wall which Irwin created with the help of a master stained glass craftsman and a fine art metalworker.

Buying Bed Linens

We visited Casa Del Bianco in NYC and had a wonderful working lunch with them as they talked all-things linens. Learn about the different types of fabrics, including blends, and what pros and cons there are to the various fabrics so you can find the best balance for your bed sheets and linens. Visit Casa Del Bianco for more information on custom Italian linens.

Fabrizio Biasiolo, Casa Del Bianco's vice president in charge (in our opinion) of Wonderfulness, would like to share these tips with you on buying fine linens.

• Trust your hand more than the thread count. How does the fabric feel to the touch? Soft or too stiff, like a tablecloth?

• The whole idea of thread count has become overblown in consumers' minds. The notion that the higher the number of threads per square inch, the better the product, is just not true. There are more important factors in determining the quality of linens and the level of comfort and pleasure they can deliver to their users.
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• Sheets have to be light in weight and have to "breathe" to avoid excessive and highly uncomfortable perspiration.

• To test softness, caress the linens with the back of your hand. The sheets have to be smooth and soft to the touch.

• For durability, sheets must be able to maintain their light weight and softness after many washes.

• Most luxury hotels choose 100 percent Egyptian cotton in a percale construction, normally a 200 thread count for bed linens. Consumers, however, veer towards 300-plus thread counts in a sateen construction. Sateen sheets are more expensive than percale, hence the perception that sateen is better quality than percale. Sateen sheets have the tendency to retain humidity and be more delicate than percale sheets.

• Sateen construction sheets don't wrinkle as much as percale. It's their only advantage.

• The more threads there are in a square inch of bed linen, the heavier the product will be. NOT the softer! The balance between the thread count and the weight is most important. There are plenty of people sleeping on 1,000-count sheets, and they're unaware that they're really sleeping on tablecloths.

• When dealing with natural fibers, the more you wash the linens, the better they feel.