Nice try, Details magazine. Really, you did an OK job identifying “innovative furnishings and products” that make Chicago “America’s New Design Capital.” (We’re not sure what the old design capital was, or if you meant “new-design” capital. Punctuation is so important, don’t you think?) You listed Luminaire, Morlen Sinoway Atelier (pictured above), Pavilion, Post 27, and The Haymaker Shop. Good start!

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The first step is to locate a painting contractor. If you’re in Southern Colorado, Crowder Painting is happy to handle all your painting needs. If you live in another region, however, there are many ways to generate leads on good painters who will leave you with a happy story to tell.

Perhaps the best way to find a good contractor is to ask around. Tell others you are looking for a painting contractor and see if you get any leads.

Successful word of mouth advertising starts with satisfied customers, and you can learn a lot about a painter from his past clients!

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It’s ironic to find a beautiful image of heirloom tomatoes on the cover of Claire Splan’s new book about gardening in California. The thought of biting into a fresh, garden-grown tomato gives her the heebie-jeebies. She loves everything else about growing tomatoes, except for eating them.

That kind of candor is refreshing from an author and a nice feature of her book California Fruit & Vegetable Gardening (Cool Springs Press, 2012).

Like other gardeners across the country, I imagine it must be easy to grow a vegetable garden anywhere in California. Aft

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I love a good plaid. Be it the refined British Burberry patterns or rugged Scotland breeds that make up those delicious kilts, I am smitten with plaid.That’s why Raw Edges studio’s plaid benches have leapt to the top of my wish list! Part mod, part preppy, the collection of benches are made up of interlocking colorful bands crossing horizontally and vertically to make up a gorgeous pattern. Che

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Bedroom Furniture Master is one of the concept of decorating with the arrangement and the arrangement was a good concept both in the choice of coloring, furniture and lighting. The bedroom is a room that requires a state of calm, comfortable and enjoyable. For coloring you can choose the color white as primary colors in the room either on the walls, floors, furniture and room accessories. To bed you can choose the model of a simple bed and have a good function for the rest, of course, with a combination of such equipment in the bed sheets, blankets and pillows bolsters with a matching color.

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Seoul-based architectural practice, Planning Korea, completed their design for the Cocoon House, an amazing project of inhabitation for the volcanic island of Jeju. Inspired by the cocoon organisms, the team chose to organize the house around a spheric volume with round windows. The self-sustaining resort that caters for both residential and business aspects. There are three different floor heights on the ground floor.

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A company called Solyndra pioneered the solar tube but this new invention by UK-based Naked Energy may just take cylindrical solar to a whole new level.  Called Virtu, the product includes an integrated photovoltaic cell in a vacuum tube to generate both electricity and warm water at the same time.  The setup keeps the PV cool to optimize energy production and maximizes space with a combined PVT solution.

Specifically, heat is transferred away from the photovoltaic cells with a patented thermosyphon technology that harvests the unwanted heat from the photovoltaic cell to heat up water, according to The Engineer.  The process is expected to generate about 45% more energy over conventional solar PV.

Virtu can be installed anywhere pitched, curved, or flat roofs or walls and system owners can prioritize electricity or heat generation, depending on their energy demands.

Naked Energy is on a trade mission in the U.S. ri

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Decker introduced wainscoting to the hallway.

Quite often during an old house renovation, the essence of the antique structure gets lost in translation. The historical elements that made the old house wonderful in the first place are discarded and replaced by inferior materials and details. The house is stripped of its character, its soul.

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Invention of Dreams

Number 4, Energy Conservation TV Shows. Prefer the ease and comfort of the television over the Internet? No problem. Simply go through your TV guide right now to see what energy conservation related TV show is being broadcast at the present time, or later in the day.

With all the specialty TV channels, it is a pretty safe assumption that on one of the hundreds of channels you may be receiving through your TV that at least one of them will be broadcasting a show on energy or water conservation.

Here is a list of favorite herbs for tea. You can plant these in a garden bed, perhaps shaped like a tea pot or teacup. Or you could plant them in containers.

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The owner of Morlen Sinoway Atelier, the founder of the Guerrilla Truck show, an interior designer, and one of the most devoted promotors of local design in town, Sinoway is also a bon vivant who loves art, music, film and books. This week, he finishes our sentences.

1. If I could live in any movie or TV setting it would be any Bond movie (except with Roger Moore).

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Architect Michael Green has plans for a 30-story wooden skyscraper in Vancouver, while plans are afoot in Norway and Austria for 17- and 20-story buildings that use wood as the main building material, eschewing steel and concrete. We think we can go higher than 30 stories, says Green. We stopped exploring wood around 100 years ago (with the advent of steel and concrete); now were looking at a whole new system using mass timber products.

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In a blink of an eye, spring is suddenly in full bloom! Blossoms are on the trees, the bulbs have all sprouted even the mosquitoes have come out. Hopefully its not too late to get my act together and prepare for the growing season ahead. Last weekend I gave the grasses in our front yard a haircut, and this Saturday its time to prune the crepe myrtles. I also want to get some herbs and veggies growing inside the house. I love this idea from Cottage Hill blog: recycled newspaper seed pots.

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To keep your wood garage doors looking nice, it is important to stain and seal them.

Staining and sealing protects your wood garage doors from the elements and brings out their beauty. As with any project, it is best to follow a few simple steps.

You always want to start with cleaning the wood garage door. Use a good quality wood-cleaning product. Dust and other dirt, mildew and moss are common on wood that’s exposed to the elements. You don’t want these things ruining the look of the door.

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Buy More and Pay Less Through Our Wholesale Program

In this newsletter we’re excited to announce our new wholesale program that will benefit growers needing lots of plants, as well as those who would like to get together with neighbors or a growing co-op to place an order together. Here’s how it works: you special order plants in quantities of 100; we do the initial planting, germination and thinning, and send you the seedlings in the Spring, just at the right time for planting in your zone. The

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