Inhabitat hits up author, architect, and downsized home diva Sarah Susanka for her “5 Tips for a Green Home Remodel.” What are these pearls of wisdom, you ask? Re-evaluate the space you’re working with, get an energy audit, invest in quality over quantity, use lighting to amplify perspective, and enhance your space with color.

 

GOOD helps to announce Finland’s annual Habitare Design Competition. This year’s theme? Outhouses. Makes senses given that “Finland is known for both its ecological designs and its outhouses.”

 

Yanko Design digs “Grow Up,” a ceramic mug with grass that grows out of the bottom. I’m a bit perplexed as to how this is actually functional (it’s certainly not dishwasher-safe) but the prototype photos look cool.

 

The Los Angeles Times visits Croft House, a furniture store that specializes in affordable-ish home furnishings made locally from reclaimed materials. Lovely stuff.

 

Natural Home raids the recycling bin searching for plastic milk jugs and toilet paper rolls to incorporate into DIY repurposed birdfeeder projects.

 

The New York Times examines how Architectural Digest’s new editor, Margaret Russell, is un-stuffy-ing the respected but out-of-touch shelter magazine. Writes the Times of A.D. “… it has never been exactly modish, particularly in the last two decades. Its photography had begun to seem unsophisticated, too flat and bright; its layout stiff and dated, redolent of the 1980s, its heyday. Like the wardrobe of a successful movie mogul of a certain age, it telegraphed money, but not always taste.”