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The Best from the International Builders' Show 2016
by Rachel Lyon, The House Designers' Assistant Editorial Director
It's that time of year again—time for the International Builders' Show! With all the biggest names in building and even some newcomers present to display their innovative products, it can be a challenge to keep focused. Luckily, we're here to help present some of our favorites from the show, including everything from appliances, to decorative accents, to life-simplifying technology. You might just find a great new addition for your home on this list, so keep reading to see what caught our eye!
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1. Decorative Glass for Transitional Entryway Designs
When it comes to finding the perfect decorative accents, a wide array of traditional and contemporary options are often found more easily than strong transitional ones. With just the right combination of elegance and simplicity, the Mission-style Homeward™ decorative glass from Therma-Tru® Doors promises to accent a transitional entryway and welcome you home with its balanced design. Featuring clear bevels, seeded glass, and gray antique glass, Homeward™ allows light through its clean geometric pattern for a warm, rich ambiance. It is available for all Classic-Craft® Premium Entryways, so you can find just the right style for your home in one of the five collections and various door, sidelite, and transom configurations. If you pride yourself on transitional style, this will be a great addition to your home!
Model: Therma-Tru® Doors Classic-Craft® Mahogany Collection™ Entry Door with Homeward Decorative Glass
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2. Expansive Sliding Doors
Finding the perfect windows and doors can be a challenge, but with plenty of options for finishing features, you're sure to get exactly what your home needs. Integrity® from Marvin® Windows and Doors lets you choose from six exterior finishes and trims, two interior finishes, hardware, divided lite configurations, and more to ensure the right atmosphere for all homes, and that your stylistic requirements are met. We love the beautiful, traditional look of Integrity's® 4 Panel Sliding French Door. It's their largest door ever, offering to flood interiors with natural light and fantastic views, which is now in higher demand than ever before. Of course, the extreme durability and energy efficiency of Ultrex® pultruded fiberglass make these windows a sound investment for practical reasons as well.
Model: Integrity® from Marvin® Windows and Doors Wood-Ultrex 4 Panel Sliding French Door with Simulated Divided Lite
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3. Durable Woodgrain Shutters
Add charm to your exterior, without making more maintenance concerns for yourself, with the newly expanded shutter line from Fypon®. These polyurethane shutters are hard-wearing, come in four natural woodgrain textures, and can be stained and painted to complement any house. Fypon® has introduced both board and batten and plank style shutters in an extensive size range, with a brand new accessory line of hinges and clavos to offer more design freedom. The stylistic options are great on their own, but combined with extreme durability that stands up to years of exposure without warping, cracking, or experiencing any water damage, these stutters truly stand out from the crowd. They are also lightweight and come factory-primed, ready for easy finishing and installation so you can enjoy them on your house that much quicker!
Model: Fypon® 18" Plank Rough Sawn Cedar Shutters in 3 Plank, 2 Batten Style
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4. Stunning Universal Flooring
When you shop for a new floor, attractive looks and durability are the biggest concerns, and you can now get the appearance of a hardwood floor and the practicality of tile together in a single flooring solution for your home. The Wood Look Tiles from Lumber Liquidators are impervious to water, are very easy to clean, and install like regular tile, but they feature an HD wood grain image that looks like a regular hardwood floor. This type of flooring can be utilized throughout the house—including bathrooms!—and gives you greater design freedom. We especially like the Elegant Wood Handscraped Acacia flooring, because in addition to all of its practical and aesthetic benefits, it shows off a distressed appearance that more homeowners have been gravitating toward.
Model: Lumber Liquidators Avella 36" x 6" Elegant Wood Handscraped Acacia Porcelain | $3.99/sq. ft. MSRP
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5. Bold Garage Doors
Clopay® Garage Doors has long catered to diverse tastes, and their Avante™ Collection brings just the right chic touch to contemporary houses that have been overlooked in the past. The glass and aluminum construction of these doors is in line with modern design principles, bringing a brighter, open feel to the garage and accenting it with a simple grid pattern. During the day, light can filter in, while light from inside adds a glow during the night. The Avante™ Collection allows you to choose between different glasses for varying levels of privacy, and you can even add aluminum panels in place of windows. There are also nine finish colors to help match any style, so these are the perfect contemporary garage doors to add something extra to modern homes across the board!
Model: Clopay® Garage Doors Avante™ Collection with Frosted Tempered Glass and Bronze Painted Finish
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6. Natural Quarried Looks on a Responsible Roof
Beautiful, sustainable, and eco-friendly—it can be hard to find a product that fits the bill! Natural slate roofing is expensive for both consumers and the environment, but you can still get a realistic quarried look with DaVinci Roofscapes. The new, deeper impressions on their polymer slate tiles make them appear thicker, and the enhanced edges also give them a more natural profile. These products resist high winds, fire, hail impact, and even algae and moss growth, making them one of the most durable and low-maintenance investments you could possibly make to outfit your home. DaVinci backs up their products with a limited lifetime warranty, and they are also 100% recyclable, ensuring that your roof serves you for years and won't contribute to the landfill at the end of its lifecycle.
Model: DaVinci Roofscapes Single-Width Slate in Evergreen-Variblend
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7. Fully-Connected Laundry Care
With Whirlpool's® new CareSync™ System, your washer and dryer can be connected to your mobile devices, giving you control and updates no matter where you are. You can download and create specialty wash cycles for the Smart Top Load Washer and Dryer through the mobile app, so you don't have to guess how to wash tricky items like swimsuits and sleeping bags. While you can monitor your cycles and track energy usage, these appliances are actually quite intelligent on their own, and they can automatically order supplies when you're running low through Amazon Dash Replenishment and will switch to Eco Mode when integrated with the Nest Learning Thermostat™, saving you money by choosing a more efficient cycle when you're not home.
Model: Whirlpool® Smart Top Load Washer and Dryer
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8. Sustainable Shingle Siding
There are just some houses that look absolutely sublime with natural shingles, but natural siding will need regular replacing as it ages and is exposed to the elements. Now you can get the authentic character you want with CertainTeed's new Cedar Impressions® Individual 5" Sawmill Shingles, which are made from a durable polymer and mimic the color and texture of the real thing. CedarLife™ Color Blends cover the range of hues of different species and ages of wood, and the TrueTexture™ sawmill finish makes these shingles look like they've actually seen a saw. Install them like you would with regular shingles, and the result is a beautiful exterior that looks utterly natural. That look won't fade over the years, either, giving you what you want without any of the usual upkeep concerns.
Model: CertainTeed Cedar Impressions® Individual 5" Sawmill Shingles
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9. A Smart Oven for Busy Cooks
If you wish you could preheat the oven before you get home, and know exactly when your dinner is done without having to take it out to see for yourself, you'll be happy to learn about the Discovery™ iQ Wall Oven from Dacor®. An integrated Android™ interface and intelligent features make this an extraordinarily convenient appliance that can take the time and guesswork out of cooking for friends and family. Not only can you control it through an app on your smartphone, but it can also contact you when meats have come to prime temperature and will switch to automatic hold, to keep dishes warm without allowing them to get overdone, when the cooking time is complete. This oven has numerous features that make it just plain great, so check it out!
Model: Dacor® Discovery™ iQ 30" Double Wall Ovens
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10. Secure Keyless Door Entry
With everything that your smartphone can already do, wouldn't it be nice to let it help keep your pockets a little lighter? The Schlage Sense™ Smart Deadbolt gives you the power to open your door using its illuminated touchscreen or even by talking to Siri® on your iPhone®, making it easy to enter whether it's dark outside or your hands are full! It's compatible with Apple HomeKit™, and all you have to do is set the users and the Bluetooth® wireless door lock technology takes care of the rest! And for multi-family housing security needs, the new Schlage Control™ Smart Locks easily consolidate data for multiple users and residence doors into a single platform for greater property efficiency, so bulky keys can be a thing of the past!
Model: Schlage® Schlage Sense™ Smart Deadbolt with Century Trim in Satin Nickel Finish | $229.00 MSRP
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11. Year-Round, In-Home Physical Activity for the Whole Family
You can stay active no matter the season, right inside your own home, with the SwingTrack™ golf and sport simulator from Visual Sports. This whole entertainment system can be installed into almost any space, and the HD multimedia screen can even be used for watching movies, playing videogames, and making presentations—but with a variety of sports including football, basketball, hockey, soccer, cricket, a hunting game, and even zombie dodgeball to play, chances are your family will be plenty busy using SwingTrack™ for its primary purpose! These interactive games are precise, and they let you use real equipment like your own golf clubs and balls, so you can effectively practice for real-world playing. You can practice your swing or gather everybody for carnival games when it's snowing outside, making this an entertainment investment for the whole household.
Model: SwingTrack™ by Visual Sports
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12. Sophisticated Faucets
Functional and with great fashion sense, the premium faucet brand Brizo® offers fixtures with a distinctive appearance. Taking inspiration from the industrial aesthetic, the Artesso Kitchen Collection offers a refined feel that will make you think of faucets in a whole new way—as functional pieces of art. And there's definitely no lack of functionality in this line. Brizo® has integrated some of the best features into this collection with ADA compliancy, SmartTouch® Technology, and water efficient flow rates, covering all the bases to produce some beautiful pieces that anybody will feel good using. Whether you like single or two handles, smooth curves or gentle angles, a polished chrome or dark Venetian® bronze finish, there is an Artesso faucet that will breathe new life into your kitchen.
Model: Brizo® Artesso Single Handle Articulating Arm Kitchen Faucet | Price Varies Based on Finish
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View Editor's Favorite Products Archive
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