Recycle your hand-basin water to flush your toilet – SinkPositive

Some time ago, we wrote an article on the Caroma toilet, which is a space- and water-saving combination of a toilet and a hand basin. Apparently, this kind of solution has been popular in Japan for a long time. It’s a great solution when you need a new toilet, but what if you already have a perfectly good toilet and you’d still like a similar solution? Enter the water-saving SinkPositive, a retrofit solution that can be installed onto many existing toilet tanks.

Portable Foldable Kitchen Scale from Newline

Several foldable kitchen scales can be found, though many models force you to hang them on the wall. This original design isn’t just compact, it looks good too. And when folded, you can hang it on a towel or utensil rack. Seems a great Mother’s Day gift to me.

Smush Can Self-powered Compacting Trashcan

Boxes, bags and other empty packaging fill your trashcan quickly and force you to take out more air than trash, almost on a daily basis. This new trashcan lets you compact the trash inside your home, and it doesn’t need electricity to work. Now you don’t have to get your hands or feet dirty to compact your garbage.

Compact Folding Table Hides Behind a Picture

When you’re tight on space, but you don’t want to take it as far as the ultra-compact Matroshka furniture set, other great solutions can be found. This folding picture table from Ivydesign is very elegant and original, yet remains a real-life solution to your space problems. When you need it, it’s a table; when you don’t, it’s a picture – with no trace left of the table it used to be.

USB Charger Integrated in Outlet – TruePower

We’ve been writing a lot about the ideal multi-charger solution to get rid of cable clutter. But most of those devices don’t come cheap, and they still need to be stored somewhere when not in use. The TruePower outlet, however, has integrated USB ports. Just plug in your portable device, and it charges directly from the outlet – no separate USB charger required.

Sports Ball Storage – Ball Claw Holds Them For You

Balls are fun for playing, a pain for storing. They’re one of those objects that never stay on the shelf where you’ve put them, because … well, because they’re round. Ball Claw is a simple yet original solution to this problem.

Compact Folding Ladder for Home Use

A few weeks ago we told you about a telescoping ladder that can even reach to your roof. Another type of ladder that’s annoying when it comes to stowing it in your home is the classic folding ladder. With this type as well, designers have been very creative recently, developing models that can even fit in the corner of your closet if space is really tight.

Shoe Storage – Floor to Ceiling

The most original attempt at a versatile shoe rack is the Rakku wheel design. But this floor-to-ceiling shoe rack is another great alternative. It takes up only 144 square inches of floor space and can still hold 36 pairs of shoes.

iPod Dock and Universal Remote – Philips SJM3151

Recently, we posted an article on the Bexy iMirror iPod docking station and remote control. We liked it from the start because, contrary to most iPod docks, you can even see and select the tracks on your iPod on the iMirror’s screen. One commenter on the article pointed me to the Philips SJM3151, which has roughly the same functionality but also includes that one feature that I was really missing in the Bexy – the SJM3151 is also a universal remote control!

Air Cooler PLUS – The Alternative to an Air Conditioner or Swamp Cooler

If you can’t stand the heat but can’t physically install an air conditioner in your home, you have few options left. You can either use a compact, cheap but inefficient fan or the good old evaporative cooler or swamp cooler, which isn’t much better. Now there’s the Air Cooler PLUS, which doesn’t need an opening to evacuate the heat but that’s still more efficient than the other options. And you can move it around your home to cool whatever needs to be cooled.