I have been meaning to update my blogroll for a long time, but somehow it seems I can never find time. Here is a great one for anyone who lives in, or loves Utah. Your Heart Out is "a blog dedicated to shopping, dining, decorating, entertaining and traveling—generally living your heart out in Salt Lake City." I have been following it for a while now, and they do a great job featuring all sorts of great things to do in Salt Lake. They even scour Craigslist for all the great deals out there so you don't have to.

Check out all the goodies at Your Heart Out.

Finding a good trash can isn't always easy. We have a nice stainless steel Simple Human one with a flip top lid. Overall we are pretty pleased with it, the only thing is that when you put a trash bag in it you can see it hanging out a little bit below the lid. These Tubelor Trashcans from Molla Space take care of that. You place your bag in the inner trash can and then it gets all covered up by the outer tube. Available in six different colors, they are sure to have something to match your decor. At only 12" high, I wish that they made a bigger size...Available from Molla Space for $41.

Overstock usually has some pretty good stuff at great prices. You may not find the coolest modern pieces, but you can usually find some good clean designs if you look hard enough. Here are a couple I found today: I really just like this adjustable drawing table because it reminds me of my dads old drafting table. I remember for a while he was spending all his nights sitting in front of it cramming for his architectural exams. This one may not be a full on drafting table, but it does have a nice maple top and a simple design. Plus did I mention it is only $109? Available for $109 at Overstock.com

I admit that I am not really a huge fan of acrylic side tables, or acrylic anything for that matter. These however are a great deal, if your into that sort of thing. For $140 you get three nesting acrylic side tables. According to Overstock "The contemporary, versatile design of this set of three Acrylic Nesting Coffee Tables is sure to impress in your home or office. " Impressed? I am by the price. Available from Overstock for $140

This couch is kinda like the acrylic side tables in my mind. I'm not hugely impressed by the design, but it is clean looking, and very affordable. The Kennedy sofa has none of the extra tufts and swooping lines that can ruin a couches look. It does have microsuede which is incredibly easy to clean up after. Best of all it's only $499. Really for that price it's a whole lot of couch. Available from overstock for $499

Last but not least is this student desk. I like the soft green mint color, and the well balanced proportions. They were even able to slip a couple of drawers in there which makes it not only good looking, but functional as well. The high gloss finish should make cleaning easy. Don't think that just because it's called the student desk it needs to be covered with textbooks. This would look perfectly at home in any living room. Once again one of the best things is the price, $149. Available from Overstock for $149.

I often come across nice looking products online only to be shocked by the price. While the $45 that they are asking for this candle holder isn't outrageous, I can't ever imagine myself spending that kind of money on it. Looking at it though, I can see that this same idea would lend itself very well to a DIY approach. All it would take is a scrap of wood from Home Depot, or even an old cutting board from a thrift store, a hole saw, and some dark stain. Not only could you save some money, but it could be a fun project too. For those looking to go the easy route, you can buy it at Hip and Zen for $45.

This may be old news to some, but it looks like Dwell Studio is releasing a complete line of bedding, kitchen accessories and baby goods at Target soon. While I was excited about all of these different lines, I was most impressed with the pricing on the baby stuff. I'm not sure if the crib shown is Dwell or not, but Apartment Therapy lists pricing for the Soho Crib ($290), Olivia Crib Set ($80), and Olivia Blanket ($15). That gives you that whole set up for well under $400 including the crib! That seems like a great value for any new parent looking for a crib. The should be available on Target online by the 28th, but some people are reporting that their local target already has some items. More pics of the other lines after the jump.Check out AT and sister sites for the full scoop: Baby Collection Bedding Kitchen and Tabletop

I am always on the lookout for a good affordable and well designed wall clock. It's hard to find a nice simple one for a good price, but this one from Well Dressed Home seemed to fit the bill. I liked the subtle contrast between the metal frame and the soft wood background. The clock is currently on sale for $24. I was pretty excited about it until I started reading the details. It looks like it is actually a faux cherry background and a hard plastic frame. So the question is, just because it's fake, would you still want it? For me I think I may have to pass.Available from well dressed home for $24

If you haven't heard of the Black Apple yet, you are missing out. These wonderful prints created by the talented Emily Martin are quickly becoming one of my favorite Etsy finds. With well over 6,000 sales on Etsy, the Black Apple is not exactly new. But even if you have know about the Black Apple for a long time, you can still find new things there as Emily is always updating the inventory. Besides original prints, you can sometimes find dolls and other soft goods, photographs, pins etc. To top it all off, the prices are very reasonable. The 6.5" x 7.5" prints shown above go for $13.

Available from the Black Apple Etsy shop.

Check out Emily's Blog too.

One of the best things about running this Blog has been the chance it gives me to meet all sorts of like minded people. It's really through sharing ideas that we can make good design more affordable. David, one of our regular readers sent me a link to some flikr photos of a great modern fence he made out of 1/2" electrical conduit. Not only does it look great, but I bet it was also pretty easy to do. The instructions come from the DIY network, complete with photos for all the steps. Also, make sure you check out some of David's other photos of his remodel of a mid century home in the Seattle area.If you've got a good affordable modern project, make sure you contact us and share! Some of my best ideas come from readers.

I've always been a fan of Mid-Century Modern design. It was the classic designs of Charles and Ray Eames that made me fall in love. This Portland End Table by Adesso has a great MCM design to it. At $135 and free shipping the price is right too. It says that it is made of "MDF bentwood with walnut wood veneer" which leaves me a little nervous about the quality. Not that veneered MDF can't be bad, I guess I've just never heard of anyone using bentwood MDF. Anyone have experience with Adesso products? Available from Target Decor (a design store in NYC, not to be confused with the chain Target) for $135.

The Wee house isn't exactly a newcomer in the prefab game. In fact, it is one of the first modern prefab houses that I ever heard of being built. What is new is their website. They have given it a pretty thorough redesign since I last visited. They have a gallery of several different Wee houses that have been built already. They also have good floor plans and 3d models of different Wee configurations. What I like best about the site though, is that they make the pricing easy to find. So many prefab sites never really publish the pricing and you can never tell if its a good deal or not. This 1148 square foot X configuration would cost me between $159 - $174 thousand dollars in Utah, not including land and site work. That is about $140 square foot, which really isn't bad considering it includes the shell with roof, windows, flooring, cabinetry, electrical, lighting and plumbing. For more information check out Weehouse.com

The Wee house isn't exactly a newcomer in the prefab game. In fact, it is one of the first modern prefab houses that I ever heard of being built. What is new is their website. They have given it a pretty thorough redesign since I last visited. They have a gallery of several different Wee houses that have been built already. They also have good floor plans and 3d models of different Wee configurations. What I like best about the site though, is that they make the pricing easy to find. So many prefab sites never really publish the pricing and you can never tell if its a good deal or not. This 1148 square foot X configuration would cost me between $159 - $174 thousand dollars in Utah, not including land and site work. That is about $140 square foot, which really isn't bad considering it includes the shell with roof, windows, flooring, cabinetry, electrical, lighting and plumbing. For more information check out Weehouse.com

When my wife was a kid she had a little red bird watching book that she carried around with her everywhere. This book might be blank inside, but it's so good looking that you might want to carry it around with you, or at least put it on a shelf where everyone can see it. Available in either ash or walnut and these 4 x 6 homemade books feature a wooden cover with a screenprinted image protected by a clear varnish. Inside you'll find 72 blank pages just waiting to be filled. Available from Veronicapress Etsy shop for $28

With our new Ikea couch in our living room we had only one more wall where we wanted some good seating. Our challenge was it had a low window right in the middle of the wall so a sofa was pretty much out of the question. We ended up going with this nice white Greene Daybed from Exclusively Home. It has a great classic look to it with the tufted leatherette and the Chrome legs. The price was quite reasonable at only $825. Shipping was free and it includes a 5 year furniture protection plan, whatever that is. Available from Exclusively Home for $825.

As we have remodeled our kitchen I have had to do quite a bit of rearranging electrical. Since we moved everything to the opposite walls there are spots were we had power, that we no longer need it. For example we had a fan above our stove, and a light above our sink. Now we just have a blank coverplate over the junction box. I came across this great idea at Interior design room to make the invisible visible. I actually like the idea of making it a design element instead of just trying to hide it. Whether it will actually look good or not.... we'll see.

I love wooden kids toys. They just seem so much better than all the plastic ones that you find in the stores these days. The problem is, they aren't as easy to find, and are sometimes a lot more expensive. My wife found a couple of great websites that have a good selection of affordable wooden kids toys. Show to the left is the Haba Ballino Grabbing Wooden Toy from nurturecenter.com. It is a simple yet stylish toy, and best of all it's only $10.Available from Nurturecenter.com for $10 Check out Brightoctober.com for more wooden toys.

I came across this post over at Tree Hugger a couple of days ago, and have been thinking about it since. From the three person design group 101 comes this great looking lamp made from old wire cloths hangers and a compact florescent bulb. Of course it's not really presented as a DIY project so there are no instructions, but with a little trial and error I'm sure you could figure it out. Upon closer inspection of the picture, it looks like it is all held together by two acrylic discs. I would love to see some pics of someone trying to recreate this. Any takers? Check out 101 Design Studio for more pics.

I mentioned a while ago that Boon had come out with several new products. We have been testing out the Squirt for the past month or so, and we love it. The Squirt, or Boon spoon as we call it, is a baby food dispensing spoon. The orange part screws off, and you can fill it full of non chunky baby food. It can hold up to 3 ounces of baby food, and all you have to do is give it a little squeeze to fill the spoon up. Arrington was enjoying some pears in this picture.The only thing we have found is that you have to give it a little tilt down while you squeeze or you will spray your kid in the face. Cleanup is easy as it is dishwasher safe. The Squirt is available directly from Boon for $8.

When we built our addition, we knew that the secret to making a small house feel big is lots of storage. Thats why we planned over 40 linear feet of floor to ceiling storage. Unfortunately when we decided to finish our kitchen with this project we used up all our budget and were left with no storage. Over the weekend we splurged and bought about 12 feet of Ikea wardrobe for outside of our bedroom. We went with the Pax Nexus Birch wardrobes. All the cabinets are 23" deep and 93" tall. With all the cabinets and some interior parts we spent about $1,300. It was a big splurge, but it makes such a huge difference to have so much good storage. I can only imagine how great it will be when we get the other 30' installed! Pax Nexus Wardrobes from Ikea.

It's 2008 and new years resolutions abound. Ours is to finally get some decent storage built into our 1,300 square foot house, and we're well on our way. We spent the weekend assembling this Ikea GORM shelving and filling it up with tools and other random stuff that had been hanging out in our hallway upstairs. We managed to fit an amazing amount of stuff in our small 6' x 10' mechanical room. We installed about 8 linear feet of shelving for just over $120. Best of all, we were able to get our hallway cleaned out so that we could start installing the cabinetry that we had planned for it....8 Linear feet of GORM shelving from Ikea for $120.

When we were first looking into making an ofuro, one of the things we considered was pouring one out of concrete. The good thing about concrete is that the material is cheap, and with a little hard work it lends itself well to the DIY approach. We quickly bagged the idea because there is no possible way our floor could support the weight. This morning I stumbled across an old post on Apartment Therapy with a gorgeous DIY bathroom built for under 3k which includes a concrete ofuro. The soaking tub only cost about $200 according to the owner splat girl. She did mention that it was a lot of work though. Check out her flicker photo set and the Apartment Therapy post.