Dornob | Design Ideas Daily

Cozy French Cave Home Carved From Centuries-Old Quarry

Posted: 08 Feb 2012 08:00 AM PST

[ Filed under Green Homes & in the Architecture category ]

There aren’t many people who can say their homes have been 100 million years in the making. Retired teacher Henri Grevellec makes his home in an idyllic, previously-abandoned limestone quarry in the Saumur region of France. The limestone deposit, created more than 100 million years ago, was once quarried extensively for rock used to build homes in France and England.

Hundreds of years ago, quarry workers decided to make their homes in the caves created by their digging, called troglodytes. When Grevellec purchased the land on which he now lives, the quarry was forgotten and overgrown. Thanks to his love of stonework, he renovated the caves to make them into a breathtaking home.

Grevellec’s home was once six adjacent caves inhabited by quarry workers. Now, most of them are connected via tunnels that the resident carved from the stone with his own hands. He has left many of the features just as they were when he acquired the property, such as the 400-year-old doorways. The temperature in the caves is naturally mild year-round due to the insulative property of the rock. No one describes the spectacularly unique home quite like the resident himself; the above video takes you on a tour of the property while Grevellec talks about his love of this extraordinary place.

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Cave Homes for Sale: 700-Year-Old Carved Rocks of Iran

Underground Cities: 3500 Years of Cappadocian Cave Homes

[ Filed under Green Homes & in the Architecture category ]

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Modified Cutting Board Facilitates Mess-Free Food Transfer

Posted: 07 Feb 2012 02:00 PM PST

[ Filed under Kitchenware & in the Furnishings category ]

One of the messiest parts of cooking, depending on the dish, can be the slicing and gathering of raw ingredients for making salads or adding selectively to a pan.

While the curved sides of normal cutting boards are handy in many ways, they can make it a pain to move food from one surface to another – plus, depending on how much stuff you have cut, you may lose a lot when trying to tilt the board.

Hence the obviously-titled Transfer by DesignSpray, a German group that simply sliced a plate-shaped half-circle from the top of a normal board, then set it on rails to let a plate slide more easily underneath. Simply sweep the top with a knife and drop off just what you need for the next step.