Beat seasonal flue

Photo by West County Fires

This Flueless Landscape Novo fireplace by England’s West Country Fires mounts on the wall, requires no chimney (provided your room has natural ventilation), and runs on natural or LPG gas. Frames come in Chrome, Graphite or in  Brilliant White.

Fireplaces as furniture

Photo by Gizmodo

The ARKIANE ICOI is a French mounted-fireplace, with a design modeled after an Inca queen who, legend says, left the Earth in the form of a blazing butterfly.The ICOI is also sold as a recessed model with only the façade and steel frame visible to the eye. A heat recovery unit and ash pan are in the wall interior. If your French is decent, check it out at ARKIANE.

Fireless pit

Photo by Misty Mountains

If you’re more the vinyl siding type than a darling of the uber-French bourgeois school, if you love leather and own a Harley, may I recommend this heat-less, maintenance-free wall treatment by Misty Mountains? Imagine a dreamy, prosaic night at the tattoo studio with just your sweetie, the latest edition of Ink Junky Magazine, a six-pack of Rainier Ale, and the two of you nested like Chinese soup spoons in front of this nougat of art.

The fireplace for windows

Photo by ImperiaSoft

Finally: the no-muss, no-fuss way to build a roaring fire. It’s the 3D Realistic Fireplace Screen Saver programmed by Geliosoft, makers of the 100 Happy Money Screensaver that animates bills and Euros raining down from the heavens. Mount a wireless monitor and you’re set. The fireplace screen saver comes with the sound of crackling wood, three different flame colors, burning logs, smoke and sparkles — and it’s password protected. (No way you want your teenagers to boot up this baby on prom night!)

Uptown pets only need apply

Photo by Carole Milker

According to contest sponsors, designer Frank Lindemann’s “Brown Tubes” pictured above is the “Waldorf Astoria of feral cat shelters”. Minutes after it was positioned outdoors, it was filled with meowing strays. Read more about the contest at The Architectural Record.

Pre-fab architecture for tabby

Photo by Gulf Coast Pet Supplies

Feral cat aid societies across the country want you to be considerate of less fortunate scamps this winter. If your conscious calls, you can buy a pre-fab kitty condo for the winter. This heated K&H Outdoor Thermo-Kitty Camper sells for $44.14.

Ugly is Eden to a mouser

Photo by Alley Cat

Your cat shelter need not be a glam product. Ally Cat Allies is a national stray animal advocacy organization that has posted detailed instructions for building your own insulated kitty shelter out of plywood and a roll of insulation. You can do it yourself or hire a contractor.

Cathouse on a hot tin roof

Photo by Cozy Winters

Feeling particularly generous? For $99 you can buy this portable heated shelter from Cozy Winters that uses a 20-watt dispersion heater operated by a thermostat. It’s a pad that’s just large enough to heat the undercarriage of your guest.

Bed and breakfast

Photo by North Jersey.com

Perhaps this is your preferred way of helping out. However, cat hoarders can really strain the budget in the winter. In New Jersey recently, Parsippany officials busted a woman who had 32 cats in a one-bedroom apartment. The cats, officials say, were breeding. Duh!

The earliest remnants of backed chairs were found in the tombs of Tutankhamun, wooden seats made with expert craftsmanship. It took until the American 1940s before Barcalounger began making the first recliners suitable for vegging in front of the television.

We’ve come a long way from Pharaoh seating. The old King would simply tut-tut these modern examples of furniture.

Designs that make a splash

Photo by Yanko Design

Designer Michael L. Wendel has found a way for anyone to perform a cannonball right in their own living room. The Splash Lounge Chair is molded from pink insulation foam and then slathered with four coats of Elmer’s glue. Spray on chopped fiberglass and finish with a coat of Bondo…and presto!

The handiest chair you can buy

Photo by Design Home Online

Many of the newest Ukranian designs are user-friendly, witness the warm greeting you get from this chair created by Oleksandr Shestakovych. Check out his portfolio at Behance.

The Russian crossover

Photo by Design Milk

Designers in Russia are also dashing out curiously playful furniture. This cross-legged chair by Vladimir Tsesler is actually a tripod. You’d have to try it out to see if it’s comfortable. I can imagine a fur coat draped across the back (faux mink, of course).

In the clover

Photo by Design Milk

This White Clover Chair by Driade was designed by Ron Arad. The seats, made of polypropylene mono-block, can be used inside the house or outdoors, where you can match them in a selection of hues to match your house siding colors. View more examples of Arad’s designs at Unica Home.

You may now be seated!

The ugliest fence

Photo by Rick's Fencing

There are lots of contenders but few winners. Oregon’s Rick’s Fencing chose this Corvallis fence as the worst of the year in its annual contest. If good fences make good neighbors, avoid living next door to this place. The homeowner (mercifully unnamed here) won “100 feet of free fencing materials” from Rick’s.

Arresting door of the year

Photo by New Jersey.com

Ohio police officer Michael Cleary submitted this photo to New Jersey.com’s annual ugly door contest. One voter remarked: “I expect that door to open and Liberace to be standing there.” Since Liberace passed in 1987, I reckon he would easily look better than the door. If this photo isn’t enough to induce vomiting, watch five minutes of any movie with Ashton Kutcher.

Tackiest lamp of the year

Photo by Find Great Stuff

A Tennessee woman created this lamp for a single Gatlinburg man in the hopes of keeping him warm on winter nights. I’d prefer setting a bonfire on the sofa and singing “Tenting Tonight”  to my ferret.

Fixer-urper

Photo by Milwaukee Rennaisance

The wood may still be salvageable underneath the siding in this most-foul of outdoor treatments. I’d recommend running a jackhammer across the surface and then dynamiting the rest of the place.

Worst carpet of the decade

Photo by Las Vegas Carpets

Earlier this year, I ran a retrospective of ugly carpets from Vegas. This is what you call a “throw rug”; you roll it up and throw it in the dumpster.

Here’s to a New Year luxuriant in décor and dazzling with fine taste. But I doubt it!

Is this ugly, or is it me?

Photo by Ugly House Photos

My favorite blog of the disagreeable and dreadful, Ugly House Photos, hosts this monstrosity. Are these truly window accessories, re-purposed shower curtains, or torture aids used by the intelligence service?

Bed, bath, and the great beyond

Photo by Ugly House Photos

I hope I never get to see these window treatments in the flesh. Window replacement costs being what they are, why would you cover your light on the world with coffin liners?

This decorating goes to eleven

Photo by Work Room Intelligence

Certainly rich and ebullient, this monumental valence is a tad busy. I think my sweetheart of the rodeo wore this to Woodstock.

Valence with a vengeance

Photo by You Paid More Than Me

If you’re into the dingle-ball era of home exteriors, this valence may be the right choice to grace your period sitting room. Taken as a whole, I can’t take it at all: there are no curtains or drapes to complete the look. On one hand, it appears that the vampire bat has made it through the window. With its brevity, it lends the overall affect that you’ve been pantsed.

Liberty Valance

Photo by Weird Wild Realm

If your window treatments are terrorizing your home, you need to take them out and shoot them.

In December, Romans celebrated the solstice for Saturn, the god of agriculture, by decorating their homes with evergreens. Pick your own reasons to celebrate. But no matter your beliefs, please, please do not decorate your home with objects that look like these:

Getting the decorating brush-off

Photo by Apartment Therapy

I really don’t need to know the spiritual connotations behind this holiday tree. I suppose you can fit empty beer bottles over the brushes and clean them for constructing a larger tree.

How refreshing, how green

Photo by Ugly Christmas Trees

See, just stack your freshly washed beer bottles into this glass obelisk to celebrate Bacchus, the god of headaches and projectile vomiting. Check out the more of offensive year-end shrubbery entered into a bad-taste contest at Ugly Christmas Trees.

Ugly or unique: You decide

Photo by Xigre

Let’s put it this way: either this tree was constructed by designers who emptied the green beer bottles into their gullets or by quirky aficionados of the tuba school of home decor. If you like this, Xigre has more to show you.

My tree

Photo by Philadelphia Weekly

You don’t complete seven years in college studying literature without learning how to arrange your bookcase to honor the equinox. The volume at the top, The Collected Novels of Henry Miller, is probably inappropriate.

If you’re going to grandmother’s house, then pac, man

Photo by Xigre

The cultural savvy of how to choose your decoration is passed down through generations. If you were skipped over, Reader’s Digest can tell you how to pick the perfect tree.

One last thing:  No matter your choice, please use safe and non-toxic Christmas tree preservatives this year. If you don’t, yule be sorry!

Dr. Becker blames the cat’s counter-top mountaineering as part of the animal’s predatory disposition to seek high ground. Perhaps, the doctor added, it was the homeowner’s fault for leaving water trickling from the tap, storing food in open containers or by not providing an adequate climbing roost for tabby.

Decorating disasters

Photo by Leather Revive

Practically everyone who has owned a cat knows that even if you have a nifty, carpeted climbing tree, kitty may still prefer to attach itself to the side of a beloved piece of furniture and turn it into a fez tassel. What’s a homeowner to do, encase a favorite chair in vinyl siding?

Pets and furniture aids

Photo by Drs. Foster and Smith

Before you introduce your lil’ kitty to the neighbor’s pit bull, consider cat-training products like the Scat Mat, a $70 water-resistant pad that emits unpleasant but harmless electrostatic charges to any intruder. Of course, you’ll have to turn it off before Aunt Gertie plops down for the afternoon soaps. Get all the details from Doctors Foster and Smith.

But wait, there’s more!

Photo by Drs. Foster and Smith

Doctors Foster and Smith also retail the Sofa Scram mat that keeps Fluffy off of your favorite napping chariot. The battery-powered sofa mat ($30) emits a nasty alarm that sends kitty racing for a dark corner under your bed.

You tattle tale, you

Photo by SafeHome Products

The Tattle Tale Vibration System runs on a 9V battery. You set the device on your kitchen counter, your couch, or your unstable atomic stockpile, and it emits a loud alarm when disturbed by a furry paw. Either the cat scampers, or you do, alerted to its presence in your personal Area 51. Check it out at Safe Home Products.

Beat decorating stress

Photo by Kitten Cannon

If all else fails,  release any residual feline resentments with a visit to Kitten Cannon. Then find your cat under the bed and cuddle with it on an approved piece of furniture.

Man-cave or kitchen?

Photo by Remodeling Your Kitchen

In this case, the kitchen cabinets weren’t even swapped out. Certainly a cabinet refacing effort was in order if you were going all dark. The “after” kitchen looks just a little dreary to me.

Backsplash for the design challenged

Photo by Susan Jablon Mosaics

Susan Jacobs Mosaics does attractive tile work, but I’m not convinced the backsplash here does more than upset my equilibrium. It looks like your television screen when the satellite goes out. I would count this project among some of the obvious remodeling mistakes I’ve seen on the web.

Before & after success

Photo by Singer Construction

Singer Construction nailed the dismount on this kitchen makeover. Before the company got its hands on it, this kitchen looked like the inoculation center at my veterinarian’s office. The company, located in California’s Orange County, says it can complete a kitchen remodel in seven days. Wonder how long this one took them.

Do-it-yourselfer Triumph

Photo by That Really Frosts Me

Blogger Kerri earns the right to crow following this make-over she completed on this nauseating kitchen in her Texas home. She and her husband re-hung the cabinets and added crown molding. Read more about the project at her blog, That Really Frosts Me.

Amazing Grace

Photo by Design Sponge

Grace Bonney has captured some clever makeovers at her Design Sponge blog. Have a gander. I trust her. The site announces that it won’t accept free samples, products or compensation for its editorial efforts.

Camp, but cozy green chairs

Photo by Earth 911

Okay, so some reuse furniture may not fire the imagination. I do like the audacity of The Rubens Collection of chairs designed by Dutch designer Frank Willems, employing used mattresses. Earth 911 reports that a single discarded mattress can take up to 23 cubic feet of landfill space. And this chair flat-out looks cozy!

Reuse that’s been places

Photo by Dornob

What were you going to do with that vintage valise anyway? Convert it into a drawer, complete with pull-handle and latch. You can pick up plenty of good suitcases at garage sales or thrift stores and make your own dresser. See more photos at Dornob.

Up-cycled green lighting

Photo by Design Blog

Enpieza eStudio of Madrid has found a clever way to put 347 used pens to work. The Volivik 347 chandelier helps provide full-spectrum beams of light.

Rags-to-riches furniture

Photo by Adaptive Reuse

This Rag Chair for Droog by Tejo Remy is built from 15 independent bags of rags. You can order one at Droog and even contribute your used clothing for stuffing.

Free-trade reuse

Photo by Pichaus

I don’t really know the conditions under which the coffee that once filled the vintage sacks of this chair was grown and wholesaled. I do know that it will cost you $622 to order and ship one of these arm chairs from Etsy. They look like comfortable chairs if you have the reuse itch!

Furniture that eats people

Photo by CPSC

The CPSC and Big Lots, of Columbus, Ohio, have agreed that 375,000 microfiber and leather glider recliners with ottomans posed sufficient “finger pinching and crushing hazards to older children and adults” to warrant a recall. Manufactured in China, the recliners were sold at Big Lots from January 2005 through December 2009 for $170. For recall information, contact Big Lots.

Fire commotion over Electric Motion

Photo by CPSC

Let’s say you bought one of Electric Motion Systems’ rechargeable lithium-poly battery packs. They’re used to power modified bicycles. Sad enough, they have a propensity to catch fire — not exactly what you’d like to happen while you’re riding to work in the morning. Hence, they’re being voluntarily withdrawn. Contact E+ Electric Bike for recall information if you own what the manufacturer calls “The World’s Most Advanced Electronic Bike.”

Your face, grilled to perfection

Photo by CPSC

Hope you haven’t purchased one of the GE Monogram® Pro Rangetop with Grill models recalled this month. Seems there’s a problem with the igniters, which sometimes fail to ignite the liquefied petroleum gas or, worse, delay ignition so that when the stove lights, you’ll certainly know it by the tell-tale explosion. Oops. The units were sold through August of this year. Check with the CPSC Recall Page to see the model numbers in question.

Life, my friends, is never boring.