Home and Kitchen

News, reviews and articles about home and kitchen products.

Microwave your lunch in your lunch bag and eat directly from it, too

compleat foodbag 2

We’ve mentioned a couple of different Unikia products for carrying your lunch in the past.  One was a Compleat Robust lunch box, one was a Compleat FoodSkin that cradled your sandwich to keep it together as you assembled it (see related posts at the end of this article).  Today’s product is the Compleat FoodBag.  Like the […]

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Is the Ripple a bowl with a detachable plate or a plate with a detachable bowl?

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How many times have you dreamt about an easy way to carry around a bowl of soup with a sandwich? Your dreams have come true with the Ripple Bowl. The Ripple Bowl is a BPA free, microwave and dishwasher safe bowl with a convenient handle and a detachable bowl. The bowl locks and unlocks from

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Office Star Space REVV 86 Series SpaceFlex manager’s chair review

space revv 1

Choosing the perfect office chair can be as difficult as choosing the perfect pair of sneakers, jeans, mattress or car. Everyone has their own criteria of what feels good to them. That’s probably why I’ve had the same office chair for the last 20 or more years. Wow, I didn’t even realize I’ve had the

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The Olight H15S Wave headlamp is controlled with hand gestures

olight h15s 1

Remember that time you were in a cave and your hands were all muddy, so you didn’t want to touch your headlamp to turn it on? Yeah, me neither… But the NEXT time you do find yourself in a similar situation, make sure you have an Olight H15S Wave rechargeable LED headlamp on your head.

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This simple doodad can make using a ceiling fan easier

harbor breeze ceiling fan pull chains

There’s nothing world-changing about the Harbor Breeze Brushed Nickel and White Pull Chain set, but it will make it plainly obvious to everyone in your family and to visitors which chain turns on the light attached to the ceiling fan and which adjusts the fan speed.  The brushed nickel chain pulls look like a tiny light bulb

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Turn any light bulb into a WiFi-connected bulb

emberlight kickstarter 2

This Kickstarter project gives you the tools to turn any dimmable light bulb into a WiFi-controllable bulb.  You don’t need hubs, and getting your house connected is as easy as signing the bulb into your router.  The emberlight is a screw-in base that you can use with any of your current light fixtures or lamps

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Replace your big screen TV with a tiny black box

brookstone projector tiny home theater 2

My fascination with tiny houses and micro houses continues, and I saw a home theater system in one of the small homes that would work equally well in bigger spaces.  I was watching a video made by Derek Diedricksen for his Relaxshacks website in which he toured the small house built by Chris Haynes of Tiny

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Add a little bit of sunshine to your room with the Happy Sunflower Lamp

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The Happy Sunflower Wall Lamp will add whimsy and light to your child’s room.  The kit consists of a circular 10.8″ wall lamp with a face design on it and a collection of stickers to form the petals to turn the lamp into a potted sunflower.  (The stickers are easily removed.)  The fixture uses E14

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Belkin NetCam HD+ Wi-Fi Camera with Glass Lens and Night Vision review

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I’ve avoided playing with “home” monitoring cameras because (1) I live in a tiny condo in San Francisco, and (2) my son is 8 now and we’re past the baby monitoring stage.  I do have friends and family with small children, so I figured I owed it to them to stay on top of this

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Breathe clean, cool air in your personal space

satechi usb portable air purifier and fan 2

Most air filters are designed to clean the air in an entire room, but the Satechi USB Portable Air Purifier and Fan cleans your personal space at home or in the office.  When collapsed (bottom, left image), the fan  “removes ultrafine particles to provide a clean personal environment. Unpleasant odors are removed, as well as small

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Zetta Z16 HD Wide Angle Intelligent Security Camcorder review

Zetta Z16 1

We live in a gated community and just a few years ago, things were stolen out of our car while it was parked in our driveway in broad daylight (we had forgotten to lock it that day). We never found out who had perpetrated the crime, but I remember wishing I had some kind of

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Eton Blackout Buddy emergency lighting and LED flashlight review

blackout buddy review 2

We live in a high-rise condo building, and the main hallways and stairways are all interior and windowless.  The building does have emergency lighting, as we found out during a recent power outage, but those are only in the public areas of the building.  Most of the rooms in our condo have floor-to-ceiling windows, so

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ShaveMate is a razor with a shaving cream dispenser in the handle

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What is a ShaveMate? It’s a 6 bladed disposable razor that has a shaving cream dispenser built into the handle which holds enough cream for a week’s worth of shaves. That’s right, everything you need to feel smooth is in one easy to use item. Razor + shaving cream = genius. The ShaveMate is available

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You’ll be able to rack ’em and stack ’em with this sofa

proteas sofa bunk bed 2

I am fascinated with looking at pictures of those tiny, under 200-sqft houses that some people live in.  While I was looking at information about one of them today, I saw a sofa that would work well for anyone living in a small home without a guest room, or for vacation homes, or maybe even

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Is Tic the future of button fasteners?

tic fastener

A couple of days ago I took us on a trip down gadget memory lane when I remembered the Ronco Buttoneer button fastener from the 1970’s. Today Luis Reyes left a comment that there’s a new button fastener in town and it’s called Tic. Designed in Sweden, Tic lets you permanently fasten shirt buttons without using

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Now your child can wash her hands without climbing or needing a stool

aqueduck faucet extender 2

As any parent knows, there’s a bit of danger associated with very young children trying to wash their hands on their own.  When my daughter was very young, we had to keep a footstool in the bathroom so she could reach to wash her hands – so there’s a falling danger.  There’s also a scalding

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Gadget memories – Ronco Buttoneer

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Tragedy struck this morning when the button fell off my pants and I’ve been walking around all day hitching my pants up every so often just because I’m too lazy to go searching for a needle and thread. The situation caused me to remember a gadget from my childhood – the Ronco Buttoneer. Does anyone else remember this

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Smarter toasters are hitting the streets – no, not the Cylons (at least not yet)

Dualit 4 Slot Lite Toaster 1

It’s early in the morning. You have mouths to feed. The first round of toast comes out perfectly, but the second round? Burned! Grrr! Dualit has solved this problem. The Dualit 2 Slot and 4 Slot Lite Toasters are made with Dualit’s patented Climate Sensing Toasting Cycle technology. This technology detects the temperature of the

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