This blog, coming from Minneapolis based Warners’ Stellian, points out quite rightly that the grilling season arrived early – along with the mosquito season—this year thanks to a very mild winter. Nobody is complaining about either and this blog offers some good tips to get your grill ready to kick into warp speed before the really warm weather hits. http://blog.warnersstellian.com/ Older posts show how to get your microwave smelling fresh as the proverbial spring daisy and how to get the most efficient use out of your stove.

One of the fastest growing websites for interior design is Pinterest.  It has grown from a million users in October to more than 16 million today.  Pinterest is a bulletin board where users “pin” pictures of furniture, room designs, kitchens; anything they like.  Even if you don’t “pin” pictures it’s a great way to collect ideas for your space and information about those products. For this reason it has gained the attention of retailers as a great word-of-mouth marketing tool. Companies like Lowes and Ashley Furniture use Pinterest to pique (p)interest and drive traffic to their websites.

Try Pinterest by typing the product type you are looking for in the search box.  You’ll get an eye full of ideas and a new look at how social media is impacting your furniture buying decisions.

The Joss Blog http://blog.jossandmain.com/ celebrates homes and lives and on its parent site, Joss & Main, offers unfailingly stunning visuals. Joss & Main, the invitation-only shopping site that notifies its membership of “curated” sales that typically last just three days and is a wonderful compendium of things that make life more enjoyable, including furniture, accent pieces, design ideas, kitchen accoutrements, and . . . well. . .  we could go on, but you get the picture.

Each week, the Joss Blog features a different style curator so expect to find widely ranging but real world tastes and ideas. Then check out Joss & Main https://www.jossandmain.com/

A recent Joss & Main curator is Lare McCreary of Stuart Lawrence Design. http://stuartlawrencedesign.com/

Those of us  lucky enough to have a wonderful Mom who doesn’t wear Prada or Jimmy Choo but LOVES her kitchen gadgets should check out these appliances found on an Australian blog.  You might think about picking up one of these instead of that scentless bunch of grocery store daisies.

Mother’s Day is Sunday, May 13, this year. Don’t say we didn’t give you any warning.

Well, all right, most of us will never live in a tree house in the jungle, but this one could make me want to. You’ll find it featured in Freshome.com, a blog dedicated to interior design and architecture. Three stories with trees integrated into the exterior design make (as in growing up through a spectacularly expansive modern deck), this isn’t the tree house you begged for as a kid.

Concrete and glass, hardwood flooring, sleek visual lines and a stunning setting make this dream house one with its gorgeous setting.

Sherwin-Williams has a nifty little decorating app available for your iPhone, Android or BlackBerry that lets you take a photo, specify any color in the photo, and match it to any one of 1,500 Sherwin-Williams paint colors. It’s called ColorSnap http://www.sherwin-williams.com/architects-specifiers-designers/color/color-tools/colorsnap-for-iphone-android-and-blackberry/?WT.mc_id=SWRedirect_Colorsnap and you can download it at no cost. We love this app for its portability and flexibility. Like the color of a daffodil or mossy tree trunk? S-W lets you know exactly what it is. Lovely!

It’s sexy and has all the tech bells and whistles including an on-door auto-fill water/ice dispenser. That’s right, no hands. Just place the glass and it will be refilled with no spillage. “So what?” you may be thinking, but wait. How about dispensing hot water for tea and instant oatmeal?  Yup, it does that too.

Thanks to the Appliancist blog for sharing this story.

http://www.appliancist.com/refrigerators/ge-french-door-refrigerators-2012.html

Just the name makes you want to sit down, kick your shoes off, and take a deep cleansing breath, doesn’t it? http://www.couchkarma.com/ But you won’t check out for long because this design blog takes you on a wild ride through interior design, new latest books on the subject, travel, and a great deal more. We let our eyes rest here for a few moments. http://www.couchkarma.com/?cat=65 Maybe it was the luscious blues and silver of the featured sofa at MetroSofa. You’ll have to decide for yourself. I am so intrigued by CK’s description of the book “Interior Desecrations” by James Lileks that I might have to buy it just to see what’s inside. http://www.amazon.com/Interior-Desecrations-Hideous-Homes-Horrible/dp/0307238725/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1236129370&sr=8-1

While home exercise equipment might not be the rage it once was it is still a great option for working out in the privacy of your own home.  Whether you are going to spend your hard earned money on an elliptical machine or a smartphone app make sure you do your homework. Like Karla Bowsher of MoneyTalksNews.com who breaks down the best-rated models with the best prices:

Pedometers

• Mio’s Trace: $35 retail, $30 at Walgreens (free shipping) and Walmart (free shipping if you spend $45-plus)
• Omron’s GOsmart HJ-112: $35 retail, $20 at REI (free shipping) and Amazon.com (free shipping if you spend $25-plus), $26 at Buy.com (free shipping)

Smartphone apps

• AccuPedo for Android: $4 (There’s also a free version, which the developer suggests testing before paying for the pro version.)
• Pedometer PRO GPS + for iPhone: $3 (there’s also a free version)

Treadmills – nonfolding

• Precor’s 9.31: $4,300 retail, $3,600 at Precor and Amazon
• Sole’s S77: $2,500 retail, $1,900 at Amazon and Dick’s Sporting Goods

Treadmills – folding

• ProForm’s Performance 600: $1,000 retail, $800 at ProForm
• Horizon Fitness’ T202: $1,000 retail, $800 at Horizon and Amazon and Walmart

Elliptical machines

• Octane Fitness’ Q37ci: $3,100 retail
• Octane Fitness’ Q37c: $2,600 retail.

Apple’s top supplier, Sharp, is getting a $1.6 billion infusion from Taiwan’s Hon Hai Group, which includes Foxconn, Apple’s supplier for iPads and iPhones. Sharp, which earlier announced a big expected loss this year, seems an unlikely place to park that kind of money, but if Apple TV is on the horizon, maybe billionaire Terry Gou is onto something big, and not just large scale TV screens. http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-03-28/sharp-investment-makes-sense-if-apple-tv-is-coming