Now, many lighthouses have fallen into disrepair and the lights staffed throughout American history by the Coast Guard are crumbling into the sea. In 2000, Congress enacted the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act, putting some 200 American lighthouses up for adoption.

Lighthouse conversions are still a romantic notion, but the need to repair or retrofit many of the unique buildings in disuse has limited the transfer so far to only 76 of the lights. Most are made into residential conversions.

Lighthouse conversion, make offer

Photo-by-Daily-Caller

The Frankfort North Breakwater Lighthouse is a great buy for those who love doing laundry naturally and for its winding staircase. It comes with a great vista of Lake Michigan. You may want to order a new set of storm windows.

Amazing house exteriors on Lake Superior

Photo by Michigan Light House

Built in 1896, the Big Bay Light Point, a seven-bedroom complex on 33 acres in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, was turned into a bed and breakfast in the 1980s. It originally cost $25,000 to construct the light and compound. While not part of the Coast Guard surplus, it is for private sale now with a $999k asking price. Pretty sweet spot, isn’t it?

Light housekeeping required

Photo by NJ Star Ledger

For those who prefer the Jersey Shore, the Romer Shoal Light Station is located just north of Sandy Hook. Be warned: it needs some work. The tower is said to be rusting and the windows are broken. You should fit the place with thermal windows before you move in. Under  the Coast Guard terms, the lighthouse is “made available at no cost to eligible entities defined as Federal agencies, state and local agencies, non-profit corporations, educational agencies, or community development organizations for educational, park, recreational, cultural or historic preservation purposes.“ Read more about it at Lighthouse Friends.

And honey, I’ll leave a light on for you.

Talk about green architecture! Talk about interior design! If you’ve ever prowled the American Southwest, you’ve doubtlessly observed how cool a cliff dwelling is during a scorching Arizona day. I lived in a cave on the island of Rhodes and never longed for electrical devices, heating or appliances. And now, you can buy the ultimate in cave homes just on the outskirts of Bisbee, Ariz.

Subterranean conversions feel just like home

Photo by Yahoo

This week, Yahoo reported on a 37-acre estate replete with a 2,890-square foot dwelling that includes a guest house, home office, and library. For $1.5 million you can take it all for granite.

Interior design for romantic primitives

Photo by The Seattle Times

An American photographer and her Turkish partner bought this lovely cave in Ortahisar, Turkey, and they outfitted the bedroom with a brass bed. They bought the cave for around $5,500, thereby forever avoiding Turkish window glass prices. Check out the story in the Seattle Times.

Going native

Photo by Inhabitat

Missouri is renowned for its sandstone caves. Here in Festus, Curt and Deborah Sleeper performed a mind-bending cave conversion into this 15,000-square-foot home that uses geothermal and passive solar energy. You won’t find a heater or air conditioner in the place!

Man-cave inside a cave

Photo by Underground Homes

If you love man caves, you’ll marvel at what the owner has done with this place in Coober Pedy, South Australia. Coober Pedy calls itself the “Opal Capital of the World” and more than half its residents live in underground homes.

Pass the SPF 5.

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!

Set sail in the Schwimmhausboot

Photo by We Are Super Famous

German designers Flo Florian and Sascha Akkermann not only dreamed up this unique and ecologically green floating house, they went ahead and built it. These designers may work for a firm that calls itself “Confused Direction”, but there’s nothing confused about the re-use of 250-year-old salvaged larch wood. View more photos of the project at The Contemporist.

Silo artist

Photo by Accidental Mysteries

Gigaplex Architects built this 1,800-square-foot silo conversion on the banks of the Provo River in Woodland, Utah. Actually, it’s made from two silos joined at the hip. Southern exposure creates passive solar heat gain in the winter, while a digital thermostat activated by computer controls the propane heating stove.

Life on Earth

Photo by Design Home Online

This earthen home community in Dietikon, Switzerland is reminiscent of the childhood home of Luke Skywalker on Tatooine. Nine homes circle around a human-made lake and use recycled glass and other materials. If you dribbled wet sand on the beach to create futuristic homes as a child, you’d love living here. Well-insulated by design, these homes reduce the number of doors and windows, while skylights let in welcome sunlight to rooms beneath the ground.

Home in the nurbs

Photo by Ruiz-Geli

That’s right, I said nurbs, not burbs. Spanish designer Enric Ruiz-Geli originally created this bug-like “Villa Nurbs” home of joined pods as a work of art. Located along Spain’s elegant Costa Brava, Villa Nurbs features built-in ceramic protection from the ravages of hot summer sun. There’s a great story on Villa Nurbs and Ruiz-Geli in The New York Times.

Now let’s pop the cork on 2012!

Las Vegas prices have dropped 15 percent from Oct. 2010 to Sept. 2011 and Forbes predicts another five percent tumble this coming year. The other warm weather cities are Fresno, Calif.; Phoenix and Tucson, Ariz. Don’t let the idea of desert living put you off. Look at these tasty designs.

For the unique desert nomad

Photo by Zillow

Three box shapes stand above the desert floor on concrete footings at this Dessert Nomad House in Tuscon. The price has dropped $100,000 since February.

Desert house exteriors that sizzle

Photo by TrenDir

The glowing cube of this Chen + Suchart Studio house in Tempe features energy efficient industrial glass that keeps you cool inside. All you need to do is maintain your central air conditioning.

Wings and things

Photo by Home Design Home

In Scottsdale, The Desert Wing House uses Arizona copper and rammed-earth walls made from local soils to keep you cool. The 8,000 square-foot home overlooks a golf course. Brent Kendle, architect, wanted to create a see-through home that still provided an element of privacy. See more photos of the place at Kendle Design.

Find yourself in Fresno

Photo by In Phoenix

Fresno, in Central California, saw home prices sag by 11 percent this past year and Forbes predicts a free fall of nearly 10 percent more in 2012. California desert homes borrow from Spanish Colonial architecture, a style that keeps residents cool in hot summer weather. Buy yourself stylish awning windows for mild spring days and Indian summers.

Want to buy? Go West!

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.

Hell’s own kitchen

Photo by Chris Brady

Hell’s Kitchen owned the notoriety of tolerating such ugly gang activity in the 1950s that it became a model neighborhood for Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story. The Street says the name arose following a dialogue between New York cops, one of whom said that place was hell itself. The other officer said hell was mild when compared to the neighborhood, and dubbed it Hell’s Kitchen. The area has been gentrified, but the row-house architecture here can’t compare with the stunning preservation of the Brooklyn brownstones.

How did you get the smut eye?

Photo by Deep Fried Kudzu

I lived in Alabama, but never made it over to Smuteye over in Bullock County. The official Smuteye website claims the name came from practice of the town’s “men folk”, who stood around an open fire in winter, downing moonshine. Their wives–shockingly enough–would guess what they had been doing from the layer of fresh smut on their faces. The local architecture: shot-gun style homes.

Town of happy endings

Photo by Tim Kiser

This typical Midwest architecture doesn’t suggest anything out of the ordinary about the Minnesota town of Climax, population 264. The town was named after a popular 19^th Century chewing tobacco, Climax Cut Plug. So quit your grinning.

Make no Buttz about it

Photo by Ponderings over the Pond

Miss the turn to Hope and you end up in Buttzville. Turns out the local architecture looks a lot like it does in the rest of rural New Jersey. But before you go getting ideas, the village of 4,387 people was named after founder Michael Robert Buttz, a grist mill operator. No doubt, the town name sparks considerable low country humor. The town is just a shout away from the Pequest River, which makes the terrain here strictly bottom county.

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.

Historical house at hysterical prices

Photo by New York Times

You want Colonial Revival, we have your Colonial Revival right here in North Druid Hills outside Atlanta. This home of an Iranian-American residential developer has been downsized from 16,500-square-feet to a mere 12,000 to encourage sale. So far, no takers at $4,250,000. Read the details at The New York Times.

Almost unique, and it can be yours

Photo by WUSA

Virginia’s WUSA reports another White House replica is for sale in McLean, not far from the original you-know-what. The six bedroom, 2.5 bath home was designed by an anonymous Vietnamese engineer to reflect his love for the country that took him in as a war refugee. Asking price is $4.6 million, a steal since you won’t have to pay for Secret Service protection.

Hybrid homestead

Photo by Gisela Gilbert,Long & Foster Real Estate

Yahoo reports that this Maryland home in Charles County is also ready for sale. Renovations have grafted the familiar columns to a 1905 home. The interior has well-matched finish carpentry to suit the era, but the home hasn’t moved in 18 months, listed at $995,000.

Sized for immediate sale

Photo by Woman's Day

Can’t cough up the dough for a full-sized replica? You can always plunk down $499 for the White House Dog House found on EBAY.

The official resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in February 2013 will be in the doghouse anyway.