home design

House Tear Down

With limited land available, especially lakefront properties, many people are purchasing old camps and cottages to tear the house down and rebuild a new, energy efficient home.

Traditionally, a bulldozer or other large piece of equipment levels the house in a matter of minutes and the debris is taken to a landfill. A green alternative would be to tear the house down in stages, carefully preserving the material and selling it at a demolition auction.

What can be salvaged and reused from a tear down?

Building components such as doors, windows, plumbing fixtures, etc.
Glass
Metals
Brick
Wood
Asphalt
Concrete
Gypsum
Plastics
Landscaping, including trees, stumps, and rocks

On the other hand, you might want to check out a demolition auction to find recycled materials if you are building a new home or remodeling your existing home. These types of auctions are held at the house to be torn down, and bidders are allowed to tour the home prior to the auction. You can get everything from fixtures, appliances, flooring, and walls.

Tip: Be prepared to be required to remove the items yourself.

NH Architects Open House

Bonin Architects is celebrating our new office location by having a Grand Opening and Open House!

Stop by to say hello and at the same time visit the other Baynham's Square businesses, Ellie's Cafe & Deli, Vessels & Jewels, and The Banks Gallery. Light refreshments provided by Ellie's Cafe & Deli. There is no charge, but please RSVP to info@boninarchitects.com or call 603-504-6009.

When: Thursday, October 29, 2009
Time: 5:30 - 7:00 PM
Where: Bonin Architects, 209 Main Street, New London, NH

Whether you're planning to build a new energy efficient home, are involved in green building, or are just curious about our business, please stop by!

Lessons from a Home Stager

The New York Times Magazine has a great article about staging a home today. Eventhough the article is about staging for selling purpose, there are some great tips that you can pick up for your daily life as well...

For example:

1) Start with a white sofa and go from there, as you can change the look quickly by changing the pillows.

2) Have a story, or a theme, and build from there.

3) Do and reedo until it's right.

4) Avoid matchy matchy.

5) Build characters and personality by adding pieces that reflect your lifestyles.

To read this article and watch the video, click here.

Image source: NY Times

Gorgeous Silk Flowers from New Growth Designs

When it comes to silk flowers we like them to look as real as possible--this is why you'll never find us buying them at Walmart!

The good ones are pricey, for the very simple reason that they tend to look almost like the real ones.

We found some at New Growth Designs that we just love. The orchids are nice and tall, so they look super dramatic. Some of them are over 5 feet tall. We like putting them on a console table, in front of a mirror along with some other accessories.

Check out some of our favorite ones:

We'll be posting these on our silk flowers section soon.

Really Pretty Silk Flowers from Atrium Foliage

When the weather starts to get cold and gloomy, we find ourselves craving for colors. That's when we find silk flowers an attractive option--mainly for the fact that it's almost impossible to find fresh flowers in the winter, plus we're super lazy, and silk flowers require no maintenance whatsoever...

Here are some from Atrium Foliage that we really like. Based out of Atlanta, they make the flowers to order, one arrangement at a time... We like them because they look and feel expensive (and okay, they ARE a little expensive, but worth every pennies though).

We'll be posting these on our silk flowers section in a couple of days. Please check back with us to see the complete collection.

More Modern Vintage Furniture-Haute House

We featured Haute House furniture a while back. This line is kinda wild, kinda funky. It's great when you have great imagination and you are looking for statement pieces.

When in High Point last week we saw that they had a new collection called "Histography" that we thought was kinda cool. It is also much more livable and muted than their other pieces.

Here are some samples:

To see the entire Haute House line, check out their web site here. As always, if you need help with pricing, email us.

Modern Vintage from Noir

We were just in High Point last week for the home furnishings market. The weather was gloomy and cold--so was the mood of the market. This gotta be one of the toughest year for the home furnishing industry. Everyone we talked seem to have a rough time.

But it was nice to see that manufacturers are still coming out with new and fresh introductions. The trend we notice most this year is vintage done in a modern way. Maybe it's because we like to go back to comfortable things when time is tough. Generally the trend is muted, simple and organic.

Noir Trading has a few pieces that we just love. We wrote about them before but we are featuring them again due to the fact that this is a line that keeps getting better everyday. If you love Oly Studio, take a look at this line. It's very similiar but way more affordable.

Here are a few of our faves:

If you would like to see more of Noir products, visit their web site here. If you need pricing for any of the pieces, drop us a line...