Category Archives: Events and Happenings

Hopefully you have already picked out Dad’s gift this year for Father’s Day, which is this Sunday, June 20th.  But if you haven’t, we have the perfect present for the perfect dad.  This year give Dad a gift the whole family can enjoy, a grill.

For the rest of the summer the family can enjoy the delicious tastes of grilled food.  And Mom, you can even have a night off from cooking from time to time while Dad grills up some dinner for the family.

At Outdoor Environments we can even turn Dad’s grill into an outdoor kitchen with our custom-built grill enclosures.

Happy Father’s Day!!

Participate this year in the 2^nd annual National Get Outdoors Day on Saturday, June 12^th by heading outdoors.  National Get Outdoors Day hopes to promote healthy living by having America take part in outdoor activities.  Whether you go fishing or biking, make sure you encourage the family to turn off the television set and enjoy nature.

There is a slight chance of a thunderstorms on Saturday so make sure you check the weather before you venture outdoors.

Technology is constantly changing and the researchers at the University of California, San Diego are trying to come up with a way to embed tiny sensors in your cell phone that can detect toxic chemicals in the air.  These silicon chips will be able to map the locations of these chemicals and alert emergency responders as well as you.   How’s that for an iPhone app?

According to Inhabitat.com, “Michael Sailor and his team at UC San Diego along with startup company Rhevision Technology, Inc. recently completed the tech’s first phase of development. Now, they’re working on a prototype that can work with a cell phone.”

How it works: A tiny, silicon chip is embedded into your cell phone.  The device will change color when it detects harmful chemicals, alerting you and emergency responders.

Currently the chip can only identify a handful of chemicals, but researchers are optimistic about its future.

We are looking forward to Paula S. Wallace, president and co-founder of SCAD, latest book- Perfect Porches: Designing Welcoming Spaces for Outdoor Living (Random House).   According to Wallace, “a well-designed porch is like a welcoming committee that invites friends and family to share stories, catch up on neighborhood news or quietly enjoy the breezes of a sultry summer evening. Porches bridge our public and private worlds, conveying the essence of one’s home.”  Perfect Porches perfectly illustrates the variations of porches throughout our country with more than 250 stunning photographs.  Random House writes, “Whether you seek to reawaken a cherished memory of a childhood porch, create an adorned haven of your own, or take an enlightening journey across the nation, this volume is certain to become a treasured companion as well as a source of fresh inspiration.”

Here at Outdoor Environments we love awakening a love of outdoor living in our clients.  Our passion for building and design are rooted in helping you unleash the beauty of your natural surroundings.  Below are some porches that we designed and built for our clients to help them create their own welcoming outdoor space.

What is your favorite memory of a cherished childhood porch?  Mine is of my grandmother rocking me to sleep on her porch that overlooked the Blue Ridge Mountains.

The editors of Kansas City Homes & Gardens recently devoted an entire blog post to giving us an exciting sneak peek into the 41st Annual Symphony Show House, a brick Colonial Revival manse located on 5833 Ward Parkway, Kansas City, Missouri.

The house opens April 24th and runs through May 16. A can’t-miss for anyone looking for design inspiration. Here are a few fun bef0re-and-afters of the kitchen and living room spaces, courtesy of KCH&G editor Andrea Darr.

Kitchen

Living Room

Do these photos leave you longing for more? Check out KCH&G’s blog post, “Showhouse Countdown“, and visit Showhouse.org for more information and to purchase tickets.

“What the world needs now in this Twitter-mad and Facebook-frantic world is a personal place to go and practice deep meditation and celebrate natural beauty,” writes Kimberly Stern in the January issue of Kansas City Homes & Gardens. And we couldn’t agree more.

Kansas City’s own Powell Gardens, with nearly 1,000 acres of botanical gardens, offers its visitors such respite.

Kansas City's Powell Gardens

And the 2010 Garden Symposium on February 20–sponsored in part by Friends of Powell Gardens–promises to touch on celebrating that sense of place in the garden with demonstrations and lectures by four celebrated garden gurus: Claire Sawyers, Stephanie Cohen, Suzy Bales and Rosalind Creasy.

In addition to the day-long symposium, there will be a pre-symposium demonstration and dinner lecture on February 19. For more information, and to buy tickets, visit shop.powellgardens.org or call 816.697.2600, ext. 307.

Time to get back to our roots!

The motto of Las Vegas may be, ‘What happens here, stays here’, but we’ve opted to break that hard-and-fast rule to share a few insights from the International Builders Show (IBS), taking place in Sin City this week below.

Green is still king, as sustainability stays on the forefront of professional home builders’ minds. Environmentally-friendly products remain the stars of this year’s show. But there are a handful of green products–according to Wall Street Journal columnist June Fletcher–that have failed to catch on, despite their advantages, including spray-foam insulation, isolated concrete forms (ICF’s) and solar shingles. For further details, check out Fletcher’s piece, “Green (Again)“.

According to a top economist at the National Association of Homebuilders (NAHB), the recession is over, home values are stabilizing, and the housing market is expected to plateau. As a result, many homeowners are opting to stay put, and implementing strategic upgrades. From a stone-hearth oven with open flames similar to one found at pizza restaurants to residential elevators with cherrywood trim and motorized revolving shelves, these products are hoping to grab the attention of the cranky consumer.

The show continues through the weekend, so check back next week for more highlights!