Ted Lott builds houses, but not like any house that you've ever seen. In this piece titled "Sit Stay," he took an old armchair frame and turned it into a foundation for a miniature house.

Designboom has more photos: Link | Ted's official website (Don't miss his artwork Mobile Home)

Maru received the gift of a new Kamakura house, which he apparently appreciates. See more pictures at his blog. Link -via Buzzfeed

You might think you’ve seen enough computerized Christmas lights by now… and I wouldn’t blame you. But this is an actual game. Angry Birds, to be precise. Former Disney Imagineer Ric Turner turned his house into the game with 20,000 lights, an FM audio channel, and controller that people can use to play from their cars! -via The Daily What

This beautiful luxury home in New York’s Adirondack State Park has an awesome secret-it’s built on top of a former launch control center, and has an additional 2300 square feet of space which lies safely underground.

And now this cabin/bunker can be yours for a mere $1.75 million! Maybe Bruce Wayne is looking for a vacation home, complete with pre-constructed BatCave? You can see more pics of this survivalist dream house at the link below.

Link

They hardly needed to put the name on the pot -just about everyone knows what they’ll be drinking from it. Link

Who knows? It might be the same restaurant where the cold drink dispensers are labeled with pictures as well.

Just in time for the boomerang kids and aging parents, homebuilder Lennar is unveiling a new concept for Baby Boomers looking to buy a new house: a house-within-a-house.

Alejandro Lazo of the Los Angeles Times explains:

Like a Russian nesting doll with a smaller doll inside, the new residential design incorporates a smaller home with a separate front entrance, kitchenette, bathroom and bedroom.

Lennar designers and researchers and an independent architect developed the floor plans this year to respond to the doubling-up trend that has affected more than 1 in 5 U.S. households. Executives with the Miami-based home building titan hope the atypical designs will appeal to families moving in together and pooling financial resources; the idea is to draw them back into the beleaguered market for newly constructed homes, which is on course for its worst annual performance on record.

It's like a duplex as a new house! Would you buy a new house designed specifically so the kids will come back to live with you?

Link (Photo: Robert Gauthier/LA Times)

This modular house by Michael Jantzen, simply named “M-House,” is made up of hinged interchangeable steel panels that serve different functions. Certain panels are opened to reveal seating, mirrors, tables, and beds and others can be adjusted block rain. Currently one M-House has been sold to an art collector in Korea, but Jantzen is envisioning the structure to be customized for playhouses, exhibits, and even office modules.

Link -via Laughing Squid

This is a real house in Portugal called Casa do Penedo, which means “house of stone.” Built in 1974, the current resident had to reinforce the house with security doors and window bars because of the many visitors and occasional vandals. Casa do Penedo is just one of a list of Ten Strange Places Where People Live, some of which may induce vertigo. Link -via J-Walk Blog

What kind of a house would you build for a pro skateboarder? A skateable one, of course!

Here's what Los Angeles-based architect Francois Perrin and designer Gil Lebon Delapointe did for Pierre Andre Senizergues, a former world skateboard champion:

The house is divided into three separate spaces. The first one includes the living room, dining area and kitchen, the second one includes a bedroom and bathroom and the third one a skateboard practice area. Each space is skateable as the ground becomes the wall then the ceiling in a continuous surface forming a tube of a 10ft diameter.

The furniture is also skateable, whether it is integrated in the curve like the sitting area, the kitchen or the bathroom or just as standing object like the dining table, the kitchen Island or the bed. Closets and drawers could be integrated in the curve too.

The PAS house is the first house to be entirely used for skateboarding as well as being a traditional dwelling. It is the ultimate dream for generations of skateboarders who wanted to bring their practice into their home.

Link - via The Awesomer

Carl and Ellie’s dream house from the movie Up! comes to life in Herriman, Utah, with Disney’s blessing. At Lovely Listing, you can also see a bit of the inside, too. Link

The woman went to investigate and found Sirben asleep on her couch. She woke up her husband, who went to the living room and confronted Sirben. Sirben argued with the husband, telling him that he lived there, before he passed out again.

“They had no idea who this guy was,” said Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Cecilia Barreda.

When a deputy arrived, Sirben was still asleep on the couch with a plate of food at his side. The couple said Sirben must have cooked something for himself before he fell asleep.

They found food in a frying pan they had not prepared. Sirben, who has a record of DUI convictions, was jailed for trespassing and criminal mischief. Link -via Arbroath

(Image credit: Florida Mugshots)

The Aliens may have been trying to tell us something by leaving those crop circles all those years; crop circles would be a neat design for a house. Jolson Architecture in Australia got the message by designing the Earth House. See link for gallery images.  Link

If corporate sponsorship can save beleaguered sports teams, arenas, and schools, why not houses? Adzookie is offering to sponsor your mortgage in return for turning your house into a colorful billboard! You get an extra bonus if your home already needs a new coat of paint.

Adzookie launched the offer on its website Tuesday — and by late afternoon, the company had already received more than 1,000 applications, according to Adzookie CEO Romeo Mendoza. One even came from a church.

“It really blew my mind,” Mendoza said. “I knew the economy was tough, but it’s sad to see how many homeowners are really struggling.”

Adzookie intends to paint its logo and social media icons onto participating homes. Houses must remain painted for at least three months, and the agreement may be extended up to one year.

Link to story. Link to website. -via Consumerist

For their new TV series How Hard Can It Be?, the people of National Geographic have created a 16 feet by 16 feet house inspired by the Pixar movie Up that can fly for real, thanks to 300 helium-filled weather balloons.

My Modern Met has the photos: Link – via Gizmodo

Photo by Boston Photographer Erik Jacobs

The 24-square-foot house pictured is named the Gypsy Junkard. It’s the largest of Derek Diedricksen’s tiny house designs. Diedricksen has always been fascinated with tiny architecture, and once challenging himself to build a homeless shelter for less than $100. He accomplished that by using scavenged and recycled materials -and imagination. The four tiny structures he built in his backyard cost an average of $200 each in materials. Outside of his building hobby, Diedricksen is a building inspector who lives with his family of four in a 950-foot house. A fixer-upper, of course. Read more, and see his other constructions, at the New York Times. Link

(Image credit: Erik Jacobs/The New York Times)

Isn’t this an adorable house? You almost expect to see Frodo coming out of it! Owen Geiger built this earthen dome in Thailand in 2007. The main component is bags of soil. You can build your own with his tutorial at Instructables. Link -via The Daily What

The Shoe House in Hellam, Pennsylvania was built in 1948 by shoe salesman Colonel Mahlon M. Haines, who styled himself as “the Shoe Wizard”. Not only is the house shaped like a shoe, but each window has stained glass images of shoes! Read about the building’s history at Roadside America. Link -Thanks, Greg Ross!

Need to cool off after the stressful drive? Of course there’s a swimming pool and yoga studio. Or, by some accounts, an ice room to escape the Mumbai heat, infused with man-made snow flurries. Then there’s the mini-theater, three balconies with terrace gardens, the health club, spectacular views of the Arabian Sea (and the Mumbai slums). [...]

Sedate isn’t an obvious description for the new building, which reportedly requires 600 staff members to keep Ambani, wife Nita, their three children and Ambani’s mother in the style they’ll soon become accustomed to.

The rather awkward-looking structure was designed by U.S. architects using principles of Vaastu, Indian traditional geomancy akin to Chinese feng shui, to maximize "positive energy." No two floor plans are alike, and the materials used in each level vary widely, driving up the cost.

600 staff for a family of 5? Why, that’s downright silly – you’d only need 200 tops, otherwise it’s just extravagance. Mark Magnier of the Los Angeles Times has more: Link (Photo: Danish Siddiuqui/Reuters)

Because pumpkins are one of the most critical elements of Halloween decorations and because there are about a billion pumpkin galleries online, the first half of our decoration ideas focus exclusively on Jack-O-lanterns. If you’ve already got your carving planned or are sick of looking at orange sculptures, then feel free to skip further down.

LED Lights:

Video link

When you want to do something more techy, try making your own LED pumpkin with an artificial pumpkin wired with lights and controlled externally so you can change the expression at will.

Dark detecting:

To take LED lights to a new level, you can always try installing circuitry that will tell your pumpkin to turn on when it is dark. While I haven’t seen this done, I think a motion detecting light would also be pretty awesome. Any readers want to give it a shot?

Snap-o-lantern:

Video link

When you want to go a step beyond LED lights, try buying a mini-pumpkin and engineering it to snap its mouth at passers by. This is also a good decoration for your cubicle since it doesn’t take up much space but is sure to get a lot of attention.

Robo:

Video link

While there are plenty of pumpkins that look like robots, this is the only one I have seen so far that actually is a robot.

Steampunk:

I know you Neatonauts are torn on the whole steampunk thing, but those who do like the art form are sure to appreciate this awesome steampunk pumpkin.

Angler fish:

For those of you who like to carve your pumpkins to look like animals, this angler fish pumpkin is not only a favorite animal of geeks everywhere, but it also makes an impressive looking pumpkin.

Dalek:

I have to admit, this Dalek pumpkin just might be my favorite carving of all time. I’m sure other dalekmaniacs will agree.

Pac Man:

While these are technically not pumpkins, the hard-shells of gourds make an excellent jack-o-lantern and the shapes of these two lent themselves perfectly to the artist’s concept.

Star Wars:

As you probably know, there are a ton of awesome Star Wars pumpkins out there. Rather than try to post a whole bunch of them, let me share this gallery of them instead.

Video Games:

Similarly, there are a ton of video game pumpkins, so here’s a link to another gallery filled with them. The picture here is my personal favorite, but yours will probably vary based on your favorite game.

Simpsons:

If you prefer geeking out with the Simpsons, don’t miss the chance to check out these awesome pumpkin artworks.

Geeky Pumpkins:

While this gallery has a few pictures seen in the other three above, the browser and operating system pumpkins are something every geek can appreciate.

Templates Gallery:

If you want to make your own geeky pumpkin but can’t freestyle a design, then be sure to take advantage of this excellent collection courtesy of Think Geek.

Extreme Pumpkins:

While I don’t condone the idea of paying someone else to carve pumpkins for you, professional carver Tom Nardone’s Extreme Pumpkins website has some great tips for carving your own pumpkins, as well as some really amazing examples of his past work. He even has a great selection of free pumpkin templates. If you really like his work, you can buy his excellent how-to book, “Extreme Pumpkins” on Amazon.

Now, as promised, here are some geeky non-pumpkin decorating tips.

Skelevision:

By using a two-way mirror, a motion detector, a light and a skeleton, you can easily create a creepy surprise for trick or treaters.

Ghost Projections:

Another cool, creepy geektastic project are these awesome projections that instantly fill your home with spooky ghosts.

Charred Corpse:

If you really want a fake skeleton to look scary, you need to go a step beyond. By using some paint and a few other basic products, you can convert a plain skeleton into a truly creepy charred corpse.

Papercraft Skulls:

For a truly geeky skeleton though, try making this awesome papercraft skull project.

Origami skeleton:

For another paper project, you can also try making a full skeleton with nothing more than folded paper if you follow these exceptionally complex directions.

Tree Faces:

When you’re looking for cool Halloween decorations that aren’t too creepy for youngsters, these tree faces can cheer up your yard with a surprising twist.

Cobweb Shooter:

Video link

While spider webs are a pretty traditional Halloween decoration, there’s never been a cooler way to spread them out than to use a cool cobweb shooter like this one.

Thumb thumb drive:

If you want to decorate your cubicle and snapping pumpkins and spider webs aren’t enough, try investing in this dismembered thumb thumb drive. It’s not only eerie, it’s also punny.

Web Master:

If you really think your cubicle is a gateway into hell, then this silly webmaster set up is a perfect way to show everyone just how terrifying life in the office really is.

Helicopter and Plane Crashes:

If you’ve got a pretty large budget, decking out your front yard to look like either a helicopter or plane crash is a pretty cool way to go, but it might be a good idea to ask your neighbors about putting a real broken aircraft in your yard first.

Flying Saucer:

Video link

For a really geeky twist though, try going for a flying saucer instead. This one even rises and falls and has a special visitor pop in and out vehicle.

Toxic Waste Drum:

Even if you happen to work in a power plant or other area where you could take home toxic waste drums to decorate, it’s best to avoid breaking the law and risking the health of everyone in the immediate area and make a fake one instead.

If you decorate your house for Halloween, you may have some of your own cool geeky tips, so please share.

Don’t you wish your parents were this hip? Link | More at Dezeen

In 1991, star trend tracker Faith Popcorn wrote The Popcorn Report. The book was a best seller that offered a catchy list of future trends she foresaw. Included in her list was a trend she named “cocooning” which reflected “…the need to protect oneself from the unpredictable, the stressful and often hostile, outside environment.” In the Glossary she added an extreme form of cocooning, “burrowing”.  Burrowing would be “..the ultimate expression of Cocooning in which consumers dig in, ever deeper, with a bunker mentality.”

While Faith was writing The Popcorn Report, I was burrowing at home in Sacramento, California, creating Public Therapy Buses, Information Specialty Bums, Solar Cook-A-Mats and Other Visions of the 21st Century. The book was published the same year as The Popcorn Report. I was essentially tracking the same trend.

I depicted a future product called the Television Life Support System:

Cautious Americans, sensing danger at every turn, may seek the passive, indrawn personal life of the television spectator, or “couch potato.” Superchairs are sold that can be customized to meet almost every need.

In the same chapter I showed the TV Sleeping Chambers, a cocoon-shaped piece of furniture specially suited to the needs of selfish teenage boys and juvenile males in general. I wrote:

Addiction to television, a disease, can lead individuals to buy bullet-proofed, sound-deadening television-watching cocoons.

In the 1990s I continued to think up home furnishings that incorporated aspects of cocooning. The Potato Couch Room Group allowed one to get comfortable inside a snuggly, split-open baked potato while at home watching TV.

This past week I created a new drawing on the subject because my earlier drawings appear dated. The Personal Cave would be a room that one might find inside a melted-fudge-looking home as depicted in the post If I Were an Architect. Inside such homes there would be cave-like rooms, perfect for cocooning and burrowing. This lady can curl up in her cave in a fetal position and forget the world. When the mood suits her, she can check the news on the Internet, look in on her son on the Child Care Cam, watch for garden pests on the Garden Cam, or check the temperature of her roast on the Oven Cam. She can Skype, iChat, or socialize on Facebook. Knowing all is well with her world, she can again curl up!

As Faith Popcorn noted in The Popcorn Report, Americans were becoming not only more interested in appreciating the warmth and privacy of their home, but were generally becoming more worried and fearful. An industry was growing up – perhaps in part because of Popcorn’s trend tips — that offered personal pepper spray canisters, motel room door jamming and locking gadgets, and even an alarm that simulated the sound of a barking dog.

In August 1992, I drew a Fear Furniture showroom for The Sacramento Bee in which I showcased furniture that addressed as many kinds of fears as I could think of.

Around the same time, I drew a California-style Earthquake Canopy Bed. If the ceiling collapsed while you slept, your sleep would hardly be disturbed!

For this drawing, Furniture to Hide Inside, I noted:

Furniture designers create furniture a person can climb inside at night. Fearing forced home entry, people are willing to sit as if invisible inside oversized recliners to watch favorite television programs.  Beds are built hidden within larger, apparently empty beds or inside walls as pull-out bed drawers.

The feeling of being unsafe inside one’s own home was not entirely without basis. After all, especially in California, modern suburban dwelling styles had increasingly favored a relaxed, outdoor living style. The idea was promoted by magazines like Sunset, which had offices on the San Francisco peninsula. Sliding glass patio doors offered a way to melt the difference between enclosed home and inviting garden. Meandering paths, accessible to the public, were included within common green areas in a community in Davis, California, a development that featured lots lacking private fences. While this architectural trend toward trusting and openness was occurring, crimes of breaking and entering, home invasion and serial rape were on the rise.

Thus, in early 1990 – note the telescoping TV antenna and stack of VHS tapes which date the drawing – I was raising the alarm about the danger of getting too relaxed inside one’s home or apartment. I offered a line of Hide Inside furnishings

Yet even in my earlier book, What the World Needs Now (1984), I suggested that hide-inside furniture like the Bed-Room might add to one’s feeling of security at night. An obvious weakness in the concept would be if the lady or her spouse were snoring at the time a stranger snuck into the bedroom.

That there are still no commercial furniture products that one can hide inside does not necessarily prove that my idea is flawed. My prediction may simply require more decades before it is fulfilled.

Visit Steven M. Johnson at his website.

I learned something new at Neatoramanaut Minnesotastan’s excellent but unpronounceable blog TYWKIWDBI every day, like this architectural oddity called the Witch Window.

In American vernacular architecture, a witch window (also known as a Vermont window, a coffin window, or a sideways window) is a window (usually a double-hung sash window, occasionally a single-sided casement window) placed in the gable-end wall of a house and rotated approximately 1/8 of a turn (45 degrees) from the vertical, leaving it diagonal, with its long edge parallel to the roof slope. This technique allows a builder to fit a full-sized window into the long, narrow wall space between two adjacent roof lines. These windows are found almost exclusively in or near the U.S. state of Vermont, principally in farmhouses from the 19th century…

Link

Before he became one of FBI’s Most Wanted Fugitives, Osama bin Laden was actually a frequent tourist to the United States, visiting family in Florida. Now, Osama’s family mansion lies empty as you can see in this fascinating post about abandoned homes of the world’s "super villains", over at Dark Roasted Blend:

This house was the residence of Bin Laden’s nephew in Florida. Osama was a frequent guest there. 17+ acres, 1.5 million dollars, built in the 1920s … Not much is known about the house itself. As for why is it abandoned: according to this source, the government flew the nephew and his family out right after 9/11 (or not). The house spent a few years on the market, but there were no taker

Link

For a time in the late 1950s while I was an undergraduate in college, I studied architecture. I wanted badly to be an architect. Yet the world is a better place than it might have been had I taken up the field!  The field of architecture is no place for persons like me who run too easily after strange ideas.

Take my Punk Roofs for example. Please, someone, take them! It is not all that difficult to conceive of a neighborhood where “keeping up with the Joneses” means having a weirder roof than one’s neighbor. Yet can you imagine the upkeep and maintenance issues? How does one clean such a roof? How much insurance would roofers need before they climbed up a ladder to re-shingle a roof, or re-sharpen a roof’s spines? What would happen if a balloon full of tourists, operated by a nearby hot air balloon concession, lost power and sank into this neighborhood?

America is a strange place. It is a great and wonderful place that allows odd fads, cults, communes and crazy Utopian villages to thrive. It is a place where adults live basically without supervision much of the time. Since Americans are so into their cars – the rest of the world will never be able to compete with the U.S. in automobile fanaticism – I reasoned that an entire village could be built that would simulate the experience of being in one’s car or motorhome every day of the year. The concept above shows a happy couple inside their Auitohome, waking up to the recorded sounds of cars at rush hour. A mist-spraying device emits a non-toxic perfume that mimics the smell of exhaust fumes and motor oil. The village that I imagine is on a pleasant, sunny hillside. The occupants do not actually need to go anywhere. One of their rooms, fitted out like the interior of an automobile, would provide a Naugahyde-lined office space with computer and Internet, perfect for fulltime telecommuting.

I have always believed that no dumb concept is worth leaving unexplored. Here, I tried turning useless attic space into an upper-floor garage. It could be argued that this concept, which requires steel girder construction to support the attic garage and ramped driveways, simply creates new, and even more useless, spaces. It could be argued that the entire house would vibrate when the breadwinner pulled into the garage after coming home from work. It could be argued that this idea has few virtues.

If anyone were to ask me to draw the sort of house I would like to live in, I would reply by asking “Do you want my honest answer?” Truthfully, I would love to live in a home that that had no – or very few – straight lines or flat, rectilinear surfaces. There would be no right angles. To enter a room, one might roll or fall along a cushioned, soft corridor and climb in through a hole. The experience would be the near opposite of opening a door and entering a squared-off room. Call me a hippie, go ahead.

A neighborhood – an entire suburb – of such homes would be quite original looking. The only requirements of future homebuyers would be a) that they actually intend to live in the home and b) that they are willing to be emotionally “honest”. The idea of emotional honesty is tricky, of course. But a new buyer of one of these homes would be required to meet with an Architect-Psychologist at a sales office and play with modeling clay. The Architect-Psychologist would say: “Tell me what you are feeling right now.” “What does it feel like to push your finger into the clay?” “Are you sure you loved your mother?” “Would you ever feel like hiding and curling up on the floor, as for instance in a dark hole that has no other purpose than for hiding?”  Once the client and the Architect-Psychologist had agreed on a design after several sessions, the home would be built along the lines of the clay model. In later meetings, paint samples would be reviewed and discussed: “What are your feelings about purple?”

It is hard to imagine perfectly what it would be like to live in a community where all the homes were organic-looking piles, clumps and lumps – shapes that had been determined on a whim at the Architect-Psychologist’s clay sculpting table. The community might feel disorienting. At least, one would not have the problem of cookie-cutter sameness in home design! A staple of cartoonists for The New Yorker magazine in the 1950s and 60s was the image of a man – understood to be the primary Breadwinner – coming home drunk and trying to unlock the front door of a home, identical in appearance to his own, but several houses down the block. The jury is out on my idea – the jury being my own imagination as it tries to place a small version of myself down inside this drawing, with its little cars and creepy-plastic-looking homes.

I was at one time seriously interested in the concept of living in a baked home. There is a tradition in Iran of firing ceramic homes by building a hot fire inside – making the home into a kiln – and sealing off all windows and doors until the clay turns to a stone-like hardness. Such homes are quite resistant to earthquakes, even in an earthquake-prone region like Iran. I have long liked the idea of owning a home that cost almost nothing to construct. If you don’t believe me about the possibilities with ceramic homes, look up the work of architect Nader Khalili (1936-2008), who worked professionally as an architect in Tehran and other major cities designing office buildings until he grew tired of the rat race and dropped out. Preferring to spend much of the day reading the mystical poems of Rumi, he built his own community in the desert city of Hesperia in southern California. There, he experimented with his Geltaftan Earth-and-Fire system for making ceramic houses and his Superadobe construction method. His work is promoted and furthered by a loose-knit community that he founded. The group can be contacted at CalEarth.org.

In my drawing, I envisioned an entire community of baked homes. I see myself living in one of these homes.

Visit Steven M. Johnson at his website..

(Image credit: F.B. Johnston)

Look at that massive chimney! Can you imagine the size of the fireplaces inside? This is Windsor Shades in King William County, Virginia. In colonial times, it was a tavern, one of George Washington’s favorite hangouts. Read more about this unique house at TYWKIWDBI. Link

This dust bunny is one of the many household creatures that bedevil Christoph Niemann in this funny photo essay. You’ve probably seen some of them in your home, too! Link -via Boing Boing

The home gained its notoriety when Ronald DeFeos killed six family members while they were sleeping in 1974 and subsequent owners George and Kathleen Lutz claimed to be haunted for 28 days, which were detailed in the book “The Amityville Horror” (on the cover: “This book will scare the hell out of you”—Kansas City Star). However, James Cromarty, who lived in the house after the Lutzes were foreclosed upon, “Nothing weird ever happened, except for people coming by because of the book and the movie.”

Link to story. Link to listing. -via YesButNoButYes

Italian designer and architect Duilio Forte designed and built his own house: a suspended folly, made in wood, that floats over the periphery of Milan. As other artists and architects before him, Forte overlaps life and creative work, generating a visionary and fascinating set of works, which are slowly and progressively morphing, adapting themselves to time and change. As Forte stated his house is “more similar to a bird’s nest than a cold concrete box.”

Link | Artist’s website

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by abitare magazine.

A home built underground that still has a breathtaking view! This is green living presented in totally inovative way. You’ll find this home in Vals, Switzerland, a design of SeArch and Christian Müller Architects.

Link – via planetoddity

(image credit: Iwan Baan)

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Crni.

Photo: Design Fetish

In 1997, home developer Kaufman & Broad built a house in Henderson, Nevada that looks exactly like the house that the Simpson family lives in, both inside and outside, including furniture and pictures on the walls. From an article in The Las Vegas Sun, written at the time of construction:

“The Simpsons”, the satirical, animated clan who put the phrases “Doh!” and “Eat my shorts” into the national vernacular, are celebrating their 10th year on television. And in true Simpson fashion, the producers of the show are doing the unexpected – recreating the family’s two-story domicile right down to the throw rugs. Builder Kaufman & Broad has taken the 724 Evergreen Terrace address out of two dimensions and cast it in three, placing it smack dab in the middle of Henderson, Nev., in a housing development appropriately called “Springfield.”

News Story and Gallery via GearFuse

My neighbor’s house just blew up, the caller said.

"What’s the address?" Mike Bowes asked patiently, just as he did with every emergency call for the past 11 years with the Quincy Police Department.

The caller frantically relayed the address, Bowes’ home address for 20 years.

"It was shocking," Mike Bowes said. "I thought she was kidding. It’s a long shot. I mean, what’s the chances it will be your house?"

Link (Photo: WHDH)

It’s a house carved out of a solid tree trunk! This astonishing mobile tree house started off life as a mobile information centre for Forestry Tasmania. It has recently sold on e-bay for AU$12,000 where it grabbed the attention of the online world. Given the inside is a bit grotty, but with TLC imagine what a perfect spare room, library or playroom this structure would make. The possibilities are endless.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by cakehead loves evil.

Imagine a house in the forest – you’re surrounded by trees and wildlife with no neighbors for miles. The view is simply stunning. The downside: bringing all those bags of groceries up the neverending flights of stairs!

Well, this may be the perfect house for some (very fit) people: old fire lookout towers converted into modern homes!

If location, location and location are what drive your visions of a dream tree house design or luxury hillside wood home then look no further: fire towers that once served vital protective services to natural forests are becoming increasingly used for new purposes including mountaintop homes with incredible views.

Link

A well-insulated 20,000 square foot home complete with an airstrip and a Jacuzzi sounds really nice. This one is underground in an abandoned missile silo! It was once the home of an Atlas-F missile built for the Cold War, but it’s been converted into a luxury home. See seven such military installations now used as living spaces. Link -via Dark Roasted Blend

Discarded frame samples become ceilings, license plates become roofs, wine bottle bottoms become stained glass windows… Dan Phillips is a self-taught carpenter, electrician and plumber who has created an unusual connection between two seemingly unrelated problems: The shortage of affordable housing in his neighborhood and the plethora of junk and discarded materials filling landfills.

“Look at kids playing with blocks. I think it’s in everyone’s DNA to want to be a builder. …You can’t defy the laws of physics or building codes,but beyond that, the possibilities are endless”

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Princess Sloth.

It seems like all the new houses in my area are covered in stucco. I got to wondering, what else are houses made of, besides wood and brick? Well, now that’s nifty has 10 unique examples.

I saw a show on TV the other day, about this little town in Arizona, where everyone builds these houses out of tires, and they are almost entirely self sufficient. This got me wondering about what other types of housing material has been used. I found some pretty neat stuff.

A house made of trash. I guess no one will really notice that your house is messy, since it’s made of garbage.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by ninigoat.

Buildings are creatively converted or utterly demolished all the time to make room for highways and other large-scale civic problems, but the laws vary on what can be done when a single hold-out structure stands alone against a sea of fat-cat developers, builders and architects who all want nothing more but for them to move.

Sometimes they successfully force out residents or bribe them with offers that range up to 20 times the value of the home and real estate – but in many cases they simply have to give up and build around them, creating so-called ‘nail houses’ that stand apart from their surroundings.

In some cases, these incredible stand-alone structures have huge fan bases of individuals who applaud their willingness to stand up for their property.

Link

Well, the market has fallen out from under everyone but it is still nice to dream, right? And who knows, with housing prices plummeting maybe you too will be able to afford one of these awesomely luxurious modern house designs. Part of what makes them so great is the variety of ways in which they take the limitations of a given site and turn them into incredible design opportunities.

Many designers must content themselves with imagining and drawing things that may never be built – very few can realize ultramodern home visions in the real world. Like a blast from the future, these ten architects have brought to life incredible houses that most of us could not even dream of – let alone afford.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Urbanist.

1. Houses produce lousy returns, while stocks produce good ones
2. House prices have further to fall
3.Many houses for sale today seem designed to waste money
4. Big houses are targets for future taxes
5. Neighborhoods are changing in unpredictable ways

As a renter and a former buyer (twice), I tend to agree with him.  What do you all think?

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From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Geekazoid.

Everyone loves a good secret passageway. The idea alone sparks curiosity and makes the brain buzz with thoughts of mystery and adventure.

Normally these hidden doors are relegated to ancient sites and historic buildings, but what if you could put one in your very own home?

Whether you have secrets to hide or just want to confuse guests, The Hidden Door Company specializes in creating practical secret doorways for the home.

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From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by whitespace.

There are some pretty nifty things you can win through puzzles and contests. iPods, concert tickets or dvd’s…but what about a house? Dave Mackie, a 49 year old Englishman is offering his house (valued roughly at $750,000) as a prize to whoever can solve a Sudoku puzzle.

To participate you’ll have to pay 60 bucks, but otherwise there is no catch. Mackie claims he is planning to migrate to Egypt and needed a fun way to get rid of his current home near Blackpool, England. Being addicted to Sudoku’s himself, Mackie quickly set up the plan. He is hoping enough people will participate so that he will have a fair amount of money in return for his house, which includes a sauna and hot tub.

"It’s a fun way to sell my house and a way to avoid getting sucked into the global financial crisis" says Mackie.

The puzzle will be available on Mackie’s website til February 2010. By then Mackie hopes at least 14,000 people will have participated.

Link – via nu

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by lilrawker.

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Before Hugh Laurie became the legendary House, he got his start in comedy, including Blackadder and his own show with Stephen Fry aptly titled A Bit of Fry and Laurie.  His show with Fry was a sketch show with Laurie doing musical numbers in between.  One of the funniest songs is called "Little Girl", and yes, that is Hugh Laurie singing and playing piano. 

From the Upcoming Queue, submitted by myleti.