de Jong Dream House: The Great Big Home and Garden Expo

This weekend, the de Jongs braved the snow to check out The Great Big Home & Garden Expo in Cleveland. Last year when we went, we were working on our floor plan and came away with tons of great ideas we implemented.

It was a different experience this year. The main difference, of course, is that we're less than a week from moving into our dream house. Instead of walking around thinking, "Oh, that would be cool!" and "Let's do that!," we walked around feeling very blessed and satisfied with the choices we made with our new home. We didn't get to do everything we wished for, but we are tickled with everything we were able to do, and the show was one big affirmation that our home is enough for us. (More than enough, really, but since our church message this week was about deciding what is enough, this fits).

Our goal for this year was to focus on the garden part of the show, as well as looking for any new earth-friendly resources for our new house. As a general rule, we don't buy things on impulse, so we skipped a row or two of "business opportunities" and "not available in any stores." Also, since trade shows like this really take a lot out of me--they are way too much for my brain to process!--if we see something we like, we tend to grab a brochure to look at later, at home, where it's quiet! Of course, I always have my handy camera (aka, my memory).

That said, here are a few things that caught our eyes.

We may be in the market for a new bed soon, so we're starting to look at healthier options. We'll have to do a little research on these.

I'm very slowly saving up for a massage chair similar to this one. Brookstone has one that's similar. I realize it seems like a total splurge, and it is, but on days when my headache is so bad that I can hardly get out of bed because my muscles are all spasming in pain, thirty minutes in this chair makes me feel almost human. And I like the idea of trying to stay ahead of the pain and treating with massage instead of pumping me full of meds every three months. Sadly, I didn't get to test one of these chairs to see how it compares to the Brookstone model.

I was really happy to see Dr. GreenBee at the show. I discovered this store in Kent a few weeks ago. They have an awesome selection of earth-friendly goodies for the home, from building supplies like cork floors and no VOC paint, to home supplies like green cleaning supplies and mineral make-up and cheese-making kits. Best of all, they have a commitment to keep their prices reasonable. In fact, they sell Dr. Bronner's Castille Soap for MUCH less than Amazon. If you live in NEO, please check them out.

This display caught my eye because we're starting to think how we're place our furniture in the new house. The room that will be trickiest is the great room, since it's open to the kitchen, has a fireplace and a stair wall to work around. Eventually, we'll do something like this with a couch and two chairs.

Our media room won't get done for awhile, it was fun to peek in on this one. I like the sconces on the wall and Niels like the techy things he'll write about in a future post!

We were happy to see the home elevator company in attendance. We may be biased, but it seemed like there were more exhibitors talking about aging in place this year.

One vendor I sought out this year was The Closet Factory. Last year, they had a really cool murphy bed that rolled into the wall instead of folding down. I wanted to see it upclose this year. We are thinking of a murphy bed for our guest room, but I liked the roll up option because you can still use the shelves. Unfortunately, they didn't have the model, but I did get the info. I think the price is too steep for us, but it's still cool.

Once upon a time, I saw a picture of a sofa that folded into a bunk bed, but this was the closest thing they had to that.

Looking around their display, I was reminded of the idea I took away last year from them, to put the full length mirror over a bench. Oops. Ours isn't hung yet, so maybe I'll try to find a storage ottoman that will work for us.

Our toddler's favorite display was this one. I can't imagine why!

There's a full size house at the show, which is always a highlight. Fortunately, the line wasn't too long when we got there. The snow storm helped.

The workers parted when I held up my camera to take a picture of the kitchen. The appliances were supplied by MAS, which is where we got our appliances. The lights throughout the house were from House of Lights, and were very modern and cool.

We absolutely LOVE these vanity lights. We'll have to do some research to figure out what they are, but they look like something from ET2. Someday we'll update the powder room vanity light to something like this.

We've seen this pendant in person before, and it's the high end version of what we ultimately bought for our foyer. It looked great here in the master bedroom, where it cast super cool design shadows on the ceiling.

The coolest thing in the house was the home automation control panel. After drooling over it, we reminded ourselves of how much money we didn't spend, and moved on.

This wall was very popular. The blackboard paint in this study area is also magnetic.

The wall-hung TV reminded me that I need to budget for a new TV for the in-law suite.

Moving on to the great outdoors, we really like this edging option for our landscaping.

The Eco-Border is made of recycled tires, and comes in black, brown and red. Both Lowes and Home Depot sell it, so we'll have to check it out next time we're there.