15 Unique and Creative Staircases

Clutter Covers: Fold-Out Hide-a-Beds Conceal Messy Desks « Dornob As much as we try to keep our workspace clean, clutter always seems to creep in – which can be a problem when your desk doubles as a flip-down bed and must be cleared daily. Unless, that is, you can tuck away your work and sleep without seeing it. The study bed looks a bit like a classic wood roll-top, or perhaps a dorm-style spin-off, but its wide-sided design is actually the secret to its success: the sides become structural supports as the desk surface slides down and the bed slides out. Variants on the base model contain everything from secret shelves (visible only when the bed is folded out lengthwise), above-desk cabinetry and other neat nuances. The best part, of course, is the fact that you do not have to sweep your stuff from the desk each time you want to transform the object into a sleeping unit. And really, with a desk the size of a twin bed there might be a lot of cleaning up to do if you are shooting to have your study also serve as a guest bedroom.

Make Room! Cool Color-Changing Walls for Your Home « Dornob This may be the best room-changing design idea since interior house paint: forget your white living room walls, green bedroom or brown kitchen and bring your favorite rooms to life with these incredible, changeable and colorful do-it-yourself pixelated wall displays. Feeling dark? Switch from colorful rainbow patterns to a pitch black surface in seconds. Want a bit of a flavorful accent? Amirkhan Abdurakhmanov (better known as Amirko) has come up with this simple but dynamic wall decor idea for transforming an ordinary surface into a do-it-yourself design canvas that lets you set the tone (or tones) depending on your mood.

In & Out Door by Jeon Hwan Soo Push-Pull; Tug Of War Is Over! Sticker industry may get a setback because their “Push” and “Pull” stickers may soon get redundant. The In & Out Door solves the problem of indicating push or pull on doors by making the door handle intuitive. Designer: Jeon Hwan Soo

Having White Roofs Would Save the U.S. $735 Million per Year Since being appointed as the Secretary of Energy, Dr. Steven Chu has been talking all about the benefits of white roofs. Now he’s going to put his own department where his mouth is by mandating that all new roofs on Energy Department buildings be either white or reflective. Dr. “Cool roofs are one of the quickest and lowest cost ways we can reduce our global carbon emissions and begin the hard work of slowing climate change,” Dr. + The Department of Energy Via The New York Times

25 Stunning Infinity Pools Around the World Visually stunning and always situated on a gorgeous backdrop, Infinity pools are surely the most beautiful man-made pools in existence. Sit back, relax, and take a trip around the world through the lens of the infinity pool with these 25 incredible pictures. An infinity edge pool (also named negative edge, zero edge, disappearing edge or vanishing edge pool) is a swimming or reflecting pool which produces a visual effect of water extending to the horizon, vanishing, or extending to “infinity”. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. If you enjoyed this post, the Sifter highly recommends:

Climate-Friendly Sunken Pool Converts into Radiant Floor Here’s a truly glamorous idea for a pool. A sinking pool! The apparently permanent stone floor in this room literally slowly drops to reveal the pool underneath. In the raised position, you can walk on the same surface radiantly warmed from beneath. Once it is sunken it looks like any other indoor pool – as permanent as you could possibly want. You could design this so that it remains as just a shallow decorative pool when not in use, one that is only an inch or two deep. But the best thing about this idea is that it would also make keeping the pool warm a cinch. Radiant floors or the use of thermal mass is climate-friendly design because of the slow release of warmth – reducing energy needs for heating. The super-rich with luxury housing do the most harm to the planet with their luxury high energy use architecture. But of course the energy consumption would depend on how much energy is expended to raise and lower the floor.