Two weeks ago I flew out to Chicago to see the gargantuan Home & Housewares Show for the first time. I love Chicago and the show was really interesting in that it wasn’t furniture or design centered, but service centered. Everything was closer to hardware store than to home furnishings shop, and everything was PRACTICAL. After two days of trolling (I barely cracked the show), here are my top finds.
Despite my craving for the Boos block below in today’s daily find, I’ve been a lifetime buyer of Ikea butcher blocks (so far), which need even more love and care to keep them from looking really dry, dirty and grey after a few years. The first big trick with butcher blocks is to oil them immediately to seal and protect the wood, but often nothing happens after that. I recently took a palm sander to our home butcher block and wanted to share how easy it was to resurface and make look like new.
Over at Social Workout, the workout set has kicked off a new challenge, prompting readers to share some great recipes for low sugar, vegetarian, whole grain and other types of meals. Check it out below and let us know what you think.
• Read full post: Fast, Tasty, and Feat-Friendly Fare
>> Homies 2009
A big THANK YOU to all of the blogs and readers who participated and voted in this year’s Homies Awards. This contest is our chance to honor the hard-working bloggers out there who help to make the online shelter world a richer place, award them a little bit of money ($50 to the winner of each category), and send them some link love. The 2009 winners are…
It’s a neck-and-neck race for the Home Cooking Homies award of 2009! If you haven’t voted yet, you’ve got 20 minutes to get your vote in.
Congrats to all of the six finalists—each one is a fantastic blog, chosen by readers from a total of 326 nominated entries. Voting will close today, January 6, at 5 pm EST, and the winner will be announced tomorrow!
Last year we started an awards thingy for home blogs because we were tired of everyone lumping us into categories like “general lifestyle” or “topical” on all the other blog awards thingys. It was a great success, we discovered a ton of awesome blogs and we drove a lot of traffic to them (check out last year’s winners here). Tomorrow we’re opening up this year’s submissions for the best home blogs in five categories. AND unlike most online awards, we’ve designed it so that it emphasizes sharing, celebrating and discovering new blogs. We think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
