Lets face it, land lines are on their way out. Most of my friends, and family don’t have land lines, they just rely on their cell phones for everything. Since my wife and I have been married, we have never had a landline. Unfortunately that can make for some expensive cell phone bills. So in an effort to save some minutes, especially with the holidays coming up, we got a Skype phone. For those who don’t know Skype it is an “over the internet” phone system. Computer to computer calls are always free. Computer to landline calls are free until the end of the year, then outgoing calls will be $0.02 a minute, and incoming are $40 a year when you buy a Skype in number. So when we are at home we forward all our calls to our Computer. The secret to making the whole thing work is a decent Skype Phone. Thats where the IPEVO Free-1 phone comes in. It’s got nice style, and great sound quality, and best of all it’s affordable.

Available from IPEVO for $35.

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For all you proud modernist parents out there, here is a way for you to show some parent pride. Hip Kid Art makes personalized canvas wall art that comes in 12 fresh modern designs. These 12″ x 12″ and 24″ x 18″ sized prints would be perfect for customizing your nursery. The wonderful designs are brought to you from the delightfully talented ladies over at Toccare Design. Prices start at $75, but you can enter the code GRM for an additional 15% off at checkout.
Available at Hip Kid Art starting at $75.

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Grassroots is all about people coming together to make something happen. In this case its just some simple advice. MatD is building a house, and has come
across a huge boulder. He needs some good creative ideas for what to do with it. So if you haven’t already registered with our forums, sign-up now, an help a brother out.

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If you haven’t seen the fresh style of Silent Revolution bags, then you are missing out. Started in 2005 by husband and wife team Andrea and Kyriakos Toyias, Silent Revolution brings a fresh perspective to urban inspired bags. Andrea’s sculpture background mixed with Kyriakos’ modern architecture background helps these sturdy vinyl bags find an identity far more mature than your usual modern bag. Not only are the bags gorgeous, but they are socially conscious as well. All bags are made by hand with tremendous amount of attention paid to both design and detailing in sweatshop-free factories of Los Angeles. Hydro bag shown, priced at $68.
Available from Silent Revolution from $64 and up.

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Hotel as home is a new book by architect Gary Chang. Raised in Hong Kong, and frequently traveling abroad, Gary knows Hotels. In this unique work Mr Chang shares his favorite Hotels, along with all the fine details that only an architect would pick up. He has been meticulously logging every great hotel room he has stayed in since the late 90’s with photos, and drawings of the rooms floor plan. Included in each entry is the exact room he stayed in, as well as the price paid for the room. This book is a must have for anyone who loves hotels. My favorites were Hotel Le Corbusier, with a daily rate of $92, and the beautiful Hotel Zurichberg at $166 a night. Great pictures, great price. Published by Princeton Architectural Press.

Available from Amazon for $19

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I am not quite sure why, but I think I have a growing obsession for strange looking plush toys. It seems like all the good ones are coming from across the pond too, like these ones from Germany. One is called the Angel Bunny, and the other is Robotman, both are sold by Fitzsu for $24. They don’t really have a whole lot of details on them, but come on, it’s a bunny with wings, and a crazy robot, both are from Paris, and are wickedly cute. What else do you need to know.
Available from FItzsu for $24

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Via BabyGadget.

We use a lot of olive oil around our house for cooking. It didn’t take us long to decide that we needed a smaller container than the gallon jug of oil that we have laying around. We ended up getting a cheap inexpensive oil pourer from Ikea. While it does it’s job well, it is not nearly as attractive as these oil or vinegar pourers from Ichendorf. These beautiful italian carafes are hand blown and available in different shapes and sizes.

Available from Unica Home from $18-$22

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Just when you thought I was out of walls to knock down. I finally got around to installing our Milgard window in our bathroom. It (like many of our projects) has been sitting in our living room for almost a month now. I didn’t really plan on making hole quite that big, but some of the old sheathing was water damaged from the poor installation of the previous window. I ended up just ripping it all out, framing in a new wall and installing the new window. Install was a breeze, and it looks really nice. The window was a special order from Homedepot. It’s a Milgard thermally broken aluminum awning window. We went with the narrow reed for some tasteful privacy. It ended up running us close to $800.

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