Man Beds

Bed makers are manning up.

After years of catering to women, manufacturers are setting their sights on men. The new macho mattresses they're introducing have "muscle-recovery properties" and cooling technology, on the theory that men are more likely to feel too hot in bed. The bed frames feature built-in TVs, iPod docking stations, wine coolers, safes and other guy-friendly gadgetry.

Dave Shapiro, a 33-year-old real-estate investor in Philadelphia, paid $30,000 for a Hollandia International adjustable bed that offers a built-in 32-inch Sony flat-screen TV, surround-sound speakers and outlets for laptops. "The best thing is the TV," he says. "You don't have to get up."

Hollandia International’s ‘Sphere’ bed, includes a champagne cooler just in case. The cave-like structure comes in fabrics including suede and microfiber. The flat screen TV is embedded in frame, and includes a remote control.

Mr. Shapiro admits his wife was less than enthusiastic when he picked the bed out six months ago. He delighted in showing her that the TV could be lowered into the footboard via remote, and he let her pick out the color and pattern of the mattress fabric. His wife declined to comment.

here's the one with the retractable TV

Star Wars Fan Apartment

           

Michael Jackson's Neverland

CNN

Today Show

Inside Neverland

Recycling Old Churches

There seems to be a trend to turn old churches into pubs or restaurants. 

Here is another, Church Brew Works:

Link to their webpage

In fact, there is a company McMenamins, that is well known for remaking old building originally built for another purpose into thriving restaurant brew pubs.

from Wiki:

Unique locations

There are fifty-eight McMenamins sites and many of its locations are renovated historical properties; as of June 2004, nine are on theNational Register of Historic Places:

• a former elementary school (Kennedy School),
• a movie theater built by Universal Studios (The Bagdad Theater and Pub),
• a building once used by the Church of Sweden as a Swedish Evangelical Mission (Mission Theater),
• the site of a former general store once owned by Oregon's first state treasurer (Boon's Treasury),
• a saloon once used by Polish immigrants to plan what became the west coast's first Polish Catholic Church (White Eagle Saloon),
• a saloon and former brothel in downtown Centralia, Washington (Olympic Club Hotel),
• a pioneer homestead with an octagonal barn (Cornelius Pass Roadhouse),
• a former Multnomah County poor farm (Edgefield),
• a ballroom with a floating floor (The Crystal Ballroom),
• a classic old saloon in Olympia Washington called The Spar.

Other locations include a former Masonic retirement home, a building that was part of the Lewis & Clark Centennial Exposition and a former funeral home in North Portland.

Link to Mcmenamins

Recycling Jails: Other Hotels Worldwide

Prisons as luxury hotels? Believe it or not, some of the best in accommodation luxury around the globe occurs in former jails. Here are the best of the lot.

I know I just posted on Liberty Hotel, but here are some others. 

Four Seasons Hotel - Istanbul

The Four Seasons Group, synonymous with luxury hotels and resorts, took a century-old neoclassical Turkish prison in the heart of the old Istanbul and made it the most posh destination in the city. Once Sultanahmet Jail, the hotel is steps away from the Blue Mosque and Topkapi Palace. As the first jailhouse in the capital of the Ottoman Empire, the structure has great historical merit and was principally for writers, journalists, artists and intellectual dissidents about to stand trial at a nearby courthouse.

Images 1, 2, 3

In 1992, the impressive structure became a deluxe hotel, with contemporary glass additions connecting all the open courtyard buildings. It can accommodate 130 guests in 54 rooms and 11 suites.

Breakwater Lodge

Built in 1859 in Cape Town, South Africa, the Breakwater prison was a long term facility for male convicts. It now serves as an ominous reminder of the city’s sketchy apartheid past, as the first prison to enact racial segregation. In addition, from 1926 to 1989, the Breakwater was a hostel for black dock workers. Thanks to the wonders of modern design however, Protea Hotels now operates it as a first-class luxury resort.

Images by Protea

The Lodge is a vibrant tourist attraction with castle-like ramparts on the glitzy Victoria and Alfred Waterfront, and accommodates guests in 300 comfortable and attractively furnished rooms.

Oxford Malmaison Hotel, UK

Built by a Norman Baron in 1071, this Oxford incarnation of the Malmaison Hotel chain was first a castle, then prison from 1888 till 1996. Redeveloped as a retail and heritage complex, with open courtyards and a luxurious hotel, it holds the distinction of being the first jail in the U.K. to undergo such a transformation.

Images 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

It welcomes guests in rooms, apartments, bars and restaurants, that at one time or another, were cells for prisoners.

Liberty Hotel - Boston

The Charles Street Jail was built in Boston between 1848 and 1851. With a blatantly non-secular cross design, immense rotunda and atrium, the prison was a gloomy house of incarceration. In 1937 a judge ruled that the prison violated the constitutional rights of prisoners and so, it was closed. Not until 1990 however.

Images 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

In 2007, the Liberty Hotel (operated by MTM Luxury Lodging) kept the historic structure almost intact, in a miraculous conversion into a 300-room luxury hotel. It’s one of the America’s most stunning and inspired “reuse” buildings.

Hotel Katajanokka - Helsinki

A famous building in Katajanokka - a district with some 4,000 inhabitants in Helsinki, Finland - was the former prison of record in southern Finland, functioning for 175 years (from 1837 to 2002).

Images 1, 2

Later, the building was turned into Europe’s classiest prison hotel, admittedly a bit of a left-handed compliment. The 102-room facility is located in the center of the city, close to the Uspenski Cathedral, and is run by the Best Western chain. One of the available rooms was the cell of former President Risto Ryti, sent to the Katajanokka prison by the Soviet Union in 1945.

Recycling Jail: Liberty Hotel, Boston.

Here's the Liberty hotel in Boston.  Great use of an old jail.  











One of the four restuarants/bars in it, aptly called "Clink"



 

Now thats recycling - Watertower to house

From Neighborhood Eyesore to Designer Home

Woman Buys Water Tower for $1,000 and Transforms It Into Huge, Eco-Friendly Home

By SAM CHAMPION and DARCY BONFILS 
April 29, 2009

Judy Fuller recycles, but she goes way beyond cans and bottles. TheWaukesha, Wisc., native converted a neighborhood "eyesore" into a beautiful eco-friendly home that also helps her raise money for charity.

Judy Fuller bought a decripit water tower for $1,000 and turned it into a fabulous three-story eco-friendly home.

(/ABC News)

The city was planning to demolish an old, rusty water tower, nearly 40 feet tall and 50 feet around, that could hold 675,000 gallons of water.

The tower had sat unused and neglected for years but the demolition would cost the city about $100,000.

"So I walked up to the water department and said I wanted to buy it," Fuller said.

For $1,000, Fuller became the owner of the giant tower in 2004.

"The concrete had oxidized and it was scaling off the building and it was old porous, concrete [that] rebar was poking through," said Fuller, the owner of Pinnacle Building Inc. who exceeded her budget of $200,000 on the water tower project.

After three years of drilling, painting and renovating, the water tower was transformed into a three-floor, 6,000-square-foot designer home that looks unlike any other in this community of 65,000 people.

Tours Raise Money

Taking it one step further, Fuller designed the whole house to be green, from its energy-efficient windows with shades and fans that keep it cool in summer to the radiant heat in the flooring.

Fuller saw a chance to do even more with her home's innovative design. She opened the three-bedroom, four-bath home to the public for $5 tours and gives all proceeds from admission fees to charity.

"On the first Saturday, 1,100 people came to see it," said Fuller, who has rehabbed other buildings in the area.

Fuller's eco-innovation and fund-raising efforts have made her something of a local hero.

Kathleen Strombon, who works for the Waukesha Memorial Hospital and helped organize the tours, said, "I think it's wonderful that people can take their creativity and put it to work for their local not-for-profits, and Judy really embraced the idea of opening her home."

Watch the video:
From Water Tower to Designer Home