Top 10 Places Home Meets Technology
By Editorial Staff
Contributed by Tim Brugger, Catalogs.com Top 10 Guru
Technology is not just portable or office-based devices and techniques that make connect you to the world.
Technology solves problems. Technology helps us control our environments. In the home, technology brings solutions to everyday living … especially when technology is fully integrated into the way we plan and use our living space.
Here is the best of where “home” meets “technology” and how technology is part of all our homes:
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10. Tech-looking products
For the techno-nerds among us, and you know who you are, decorate your home with items like a toaster that looks like a printer, storage bins that model computer keys and coasters that copy iPhone applications. Kitchen gadgets are a natural for quirky tech-inspired design. Sure, it will look like the Geek Squad came and threw up all over your home, but Tekkies will rejoice.
9. Internet tools
With the internet at our finger tips, you can be certain that someone, somewhere, has posted a decorating idea you’ll like. With a couple of key strokes, you can find out all the particulars of what it will take, and what it will look like, to redo the living room in a knights of the roundtable motif. There are web sites with literally thousands of pictures for each room in the home. Tread lightly though, too much information has been known to induce analysis paralysis in the best of us.
8. Going wireless
It’s all the rage at Coffee Houses everywhere, and now you can bring the wireless phenomenon to your own home. Many new homes are even built wireless ready, and you can certainly incorporate that into your own decorating plans as well. While it may not do much for the décor, it will take functionality to a whole new level.
7. Digital technology
Pictures of family and friends prominently displayed as part of a home’s motif speak to what you find important in your life. Now, you can use technology to manipulate pictures for size, cropping or even create a collage (black and white is always an interesting look) using digital photo technology. You can tell visitors you’ve been taking some photography classes; they’ll never have to know.
6. Cell phone
What, you may ask, does a cell phone have to do with home decorating? Picture this (no pun intended), you’re at the furniture store, and have absolutely fallen in love with two settees. Of course, buying furniture isn’t like getting a new outfit, only to find it looked better in the store changing room than it does at home. So, use your cell phone camera to snap pictures of the competing settees, and then run home to visualize what they will look like, perfectly positioned, before making a decision.
5. Decorating around technology
Techorating. No, that’s not a typo, there really is a new trend in home decorating called techorating; kind of catchy really. With the proliferation of home theater systems, 86-foot wide flat screen TVs and audio systems that would put heavy metal rockers to shame, techorating entails designing in and around all of those snazzy systems.
4. Smart controls
The ultimate couch potato’s dream, smart controls allow you to turn on and off the lighting, audio and visual systems in the entire home using nothing more than a touchscreen or a home management remote. If only there were a smart exercise control that would provide us with a complete workout, without the need to actually move.
3. Digital pictures
Alter the mood of a room, at least in part, using digital pictures that can change the art hanging on your walls from modern to neo-classical in a nanosecond. If you’ve seen this before you know, some of these digital pictures have outstanding quality too. If you find yourself in need of some renaissance, a couple of quick adjustments and out with the Pollack, in with the da Vinci.
2. Digital leather
How cool is this: now you can custom design your own leather furnishings using digital print media. Design your own leather patterns, textures and colors for either new or used furniture, and see the results before buying. Now when friends and family ask where you got that amazing new couch, you can tell them it was a just a little design you threw together.
1. Virtual home decorating
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It was only a matter of time before Computer Aided Design (CAD) techniques made there way to home decorating. Well, the wait is over. Now you can use software to virtually design your home’s interior before finding out the colors don’t work, or the furnishings aren’t right. With this technology, you can try different colors and combinations, furnishing arrangements; you name it. Once you find the design that works, you can make a beeline for the right materials, avoiding the usual home decorating store headaches.