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Our homes are made up of lots of working parts — bedrooms, redecorated kitchens, upgraded baths, ogle-worthy renos, ticks and tricks for cleaning and organizing, and real home tours all live here to represent the spaces of your Offbeat Home.

Tour a tiny loft with an elevated bed

My house feels too big! After three days in a minimalist loft in Seattle, I’m thinking it’s time to hoist the bed and use some of the ideas this small space sent home with me.

Luckiest kid in the world has a bedroom built of LEGO

When you need to add a space for your kid in your one-bedroom condo, what do you do? How about adding a loft made of LEGO blocks? It’s a very tiny building material, and it makes for a super cool custom bedroom you’ve got to see to believe.

3 links celebrating garden-dwelling hedgehogs

Honestly, this post is just a reason for me to fantasize about what it would be like to have little hedgehogs living in my garden, all cute and waddly. So I found videos, GIFs, and helpful tips to teach me all about my completely-imaginary hedgehog.

Create a bed alcove with vertical blinds

Please allow us to all to bask in this concept from French site ducotedechezvous.com. It’s so simple I can’t believe I didn’t think of it first: bed alcove + vertical blinds = brilliant studio apartment space-division hack. Since living in Los Angeles a decade ago, I’ve had this grudge against vertical blinds (UG! The way they clack-clack-clack when a breeze comes through the window!), but this makes me reconsider. How else could vertical blinds be used to divide smalls spaces?

Low-sew curtains: 50 minutes of work for a showy result

I had a length of freshly washed fabric folded up and hung over the railing in the dining room for well over a month. I’d picked it up at the fabric shop directly after reading a how-to for making my own no-sew curtains out of burlap.

Now, I’m not much into burlap (shocking, I know), but I was certain I could replicate this style with something a little more my speed. So I purchased some fabric I liked and did a quick sketch to set myself in the right direction (a direction I like to call, “A Hair Short of Wing-It”).

The mysterious and energy-focusing, gold-plated pyramid home in Illinois

Jim and Linda Onan believe that pyramids focus energy, so when they built a new home in 1974, they decided to built a pyramid to live in. Now their estate includes a bigger-than-life-sized replica of a statue of Ramses II, and a moat — not to mention a burial chamber

Yurts, slugs, and life in a temperate rainforest

We’ve talked about Sacred Groves before — it’s Ariel’s mama’s land in Western Washington that used to be an intentional community. But it’s worth revisiting, since I just got back from the Offbeat Retreat with fresh photos and new stories. Sit back and dream your way through this quickie home tour.

This item in your medicine cabinet can make old plastic new again

Restoring old stereoware is my new habit — but I often get stuck on the plastic knobs, some of which have gotten gnarly and faded. I’m here to find out what my options are to save these little doodads.