Around The House

By Maryanne Murray Buechner, Lev Grossman and Anita Hamilton Sunday, Nov. 10, 2002
    • Just Say Ohm
    Nothing sets the mood for work or play better than the perfect light, so why limit yourself to dim or bright, fluorescent or incandescent? The new Therapie lamps look a little like Rothko paintings, with their gorgeous reds, yellows and greens softly melting into one another. Housed in brushed-aluminum frames, they range from 2 ft. to 6 1/2 ft. long and double as postmodern works of art. But they are more than just pretty lights. Powered by the same fluorescent bulbs used for light therapy (to treat seasonal affective disorder during winter months, for example), the lamps may actually brighten your spirits. And the colored gels can be mixed and matched, so you can choose a yellow-green combination to energize you in the kitchen or a purple-red to get things started in the bedroom.
    INVENTOR Daniel Raiche
    AVAILABility Now, $1,300 to $1,700
    TO LEARN MORE www.snowlabdesign.com

    Spin Control
    Not just another bagless vacuum cleaner, the Dyson DC07 has a brand-new way to take grime out of your carpet. It's called cyclonic separation. Whirling dirt and air within its eight cylindrical cyclones at speeds up to 600 m.p.h., the machine uses centrifugal force to trap the dirt and expel the air. Because there is no filter to clog, the DC07 never loses its oomph. Its "liquid steel" shell is made from the same plastic-metal polycarbonate as riot shields. And emptying the collected dirt is as simple as pulling the trigger.
    INVENTOR James Dyson
    AVAILABILITY Now, $399
    TO LEARN MORE www.dyson.com


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    Take a Seat
    No one ever bothers to reinvent the wheel, but chairs are another matter. Take the new EVA DVA Child Chairs, for example. Made of the same soft, nontoxic foam used in athletic mats, they come in vibrant colors and can be stacked like oversize blocks to create free-form sculptures or geometric room partitions. Available in 12 color combinations, including orange-red, green-blue and yellow-gray, the chairs are designed for children ages 3 to 6 but are supposed to be sturdy enough to hold adults weighing as much as 300 lbs. That might be a tight squeeze.
    INVENTORS Lawrence and Sharon Tarantino, Tarantino Furniture
    AVAILABILITY Now, $80 a chair
    TO LEARN MORE www.evadva.com

    Under Cover
    Are you having a love-hate affair with your blankets? Do you throw them off at 2 a.m. because you're too hot and then desperately cocoon at 6 a.m. to warm up? Perhaps you need Outlast's new Adaptive Comfort bedding. It introduces climate control where it counts — under the covers. The pillow, mattress pad and duvet cover look quite conventional — boring even, as they come only in white. But each is sewn with a layer of tiny capsules, called thermacules, that absorb, store and release heat as needed to regulate temperature. A version of this "phase change" material, originally developed for NASA for use in astronaut gloves, has appeared in ski boots, ski helmets and other cold-weather gear.
    INVENTOR Outlast Technologies
    AVAILABILITY Now, $20 to $100
    TO LEARN MORE www.outlast.com