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I know you won’t love every unique home in this year-end ditty, but at least one should catch your fancy. I surfed high and low to round up some of the more off-kilter designs, including a conversion I bet you’ve never seen. Let’s end a rather tattered 2011 on a whimsical note. I wish you and your family a new year filled with peace and laughter.

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!

You remember the place: the house that you never walked past when you were a child. For me, it was the Victorian by the creek with peeling paint tucked behind an overgrown trellis and oak trees with limbs like an old man’s bones. Old newspapers were piled on the porch. Ivy snaked through the wrought-iron fence and scraggly cats fought over rodents on the patchy lawn.

What is it about Victorian architecture, anyway? Well-kept or restored Vicks are a delight. There’s one overlooking the sea where I live that always takes my breath away. And it’s green, too, with well-matched energy efficient replacement windows and a new copper roof.  Nonetheless, an unkempt old house is enough to scare the pants off of me to this day.

How to terrify, Pt. 1

Photo by Austin Home Restorations

According to the folks at Austin Home Restorations, a scary house has to be old and large, have neglected house exteriors and a spooky background story.

Salem architecture

Photo by The Mirror Up to Nature

Not all spooky homes are Victorians. I’ve never been to Massachusetts, but I can see that some parts of Salem are haunted to this day. The exteriors of this place recall the Amityville home where those gruesome murders took place. Come on, people! Painting an old house isn’t all that difficult.

Bewitchingly apt

Photo by Andrew's Blog

This New Jersey home in Freehold was used for the exteriors in the production of Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Add a dark night with clouds streaming across the face of the moon, mix with a dash of moaning hounds, and finish it off with a wind-blown creaking gate. Brrr!

Green center of horror

Photo by The Green ABC's Blog

Indiana’s April Brewster Smythe posted this blog photo to promote the Green Center Haunted School House. Just a few miles from Churubusco, Green Center is located at the intersection of CR 300S and CR 300E in Noble County, just in case you want to walk by some creepy evening.