The Home Crowd

Bassett Furniture begins a very lengthy giveaway promotion today.  Lasting from September 4th, 2008 to December 18th, 2008, they’ll be giving away one custom sofa each day in honor of their 106th anniversary. 

Kinda fun, it’s kinda like the “build you car” portion of any carmaker’s website.  Except here you may actually have the option of getting your sofa in “hunter’s orange” whereas Hummer can’t understand why outdoorsmen may actually find this useful.

Bassett Furniture is a leader in home furnishings, providing design solutions with custom designed furniture, stylish accessories and complimentary in-home design service. The company’s custom upholstery capabilities gives customers an unmatched variety of design options including 750+ fabrics, arms, backs, pillows and bases.  With a user-friendly website and a well-trained staff, custom designing Bassett upholstery is simple, enjoyable, a great value, and best of all, delivered within a remarkable 30 days.

The interactive custom upholstery tool online at BassettFurniture.com, allows the winner to get creative and build their dream sofa from scratch.  Choosing from small to extra large, the first choice is the scale of the sofa.  Custom design your selection with extensive choices, including 10 options for arms, five choices for the back and six choices for the leg.  Customers also choose from more than 750 fabrics, along with design features such as constrasting welting, pillow fringe, monogramming and wood leg finishes.

The custom design can be created both online and in-store, allowing you to see every step and design detail as you build your custom sofa.  Change the fabrics as many times as you like, change the arm shape or change the accent pillows to create your perfect look to fit your lifestyle.  Then, submit your design online for your chance to win.

Also, the room planner is a fun tool.  It’s flash based and let’s you lay out a room fairly quickly…

Bassett Room Planner

But tinker with it, and good luck to you… Hope ya win a nice new sofa!

Link to Bassett Furniture

HomeAid is a leading national non-profit provider of housing for today’s homeless. The organization builds and renovates multi-unit homes for America’s temporarily homeless while they rebuild their lives.

Annually, the fundraiser known as “Project Playhouse” benefits HomeAid Orange County (CA) comes together in the open air of fashion island and culminates in the auction of the playhouses at the conclusion of their exhibition.  And these aren’t your run-of-the-mill dolled up sheds you might be imagining…

Hampton Harmony (above) by Shea Homes was featured at last year’s event.  The assortment of playhouses are typically funded by homebuilders and product vendors.  Volunteer firms also provide architectural, interior design, and landscape design services, as well as countless hours volunteered towards the labor of creating these miniature McMansions.

High design? For a playhouse you say?  You may swap out with the kids after you see how well these pads are outfitted.  It’s not unusual to see playhouses very fine interior spaces, decked out with granite countertops and plasma televisions.  And they won’t take up much of your backyard space as each playhouse is designed to fit in a 10′X10′ space.  However, if you’re planning on diving into this mini-housing auction, make sure to bring your checkbook as many playhouses of years past have gone for upwards of $50,000.  Still not a bad deal considering the cost of housing per square foot.

The Sketch Pad (above) by William Lyon homes was also featured at 2007′s Project playhouse event.

The playhouse village will be on display near the Atrium Lawn at Fashion Island in Newport Beach, California from September 6 to October 11, 2008. Visitors have an opportunity to view the pint-size creations on display by purchasing a ticket at the playhouse village. While at the village, visitors can purchase tickets to enter an opportunity drawing to win one of the playhouses on display (all remaining playhouses will be available for auction on October 11, 2008). Funds raised, including raffle and auction proceeds, support HomeAid Orange County’s mission of building dignified housing where homeless families and individuals can rebuild their lives.

The opening day, September 6th, however, is the best chance to get a good peek inside the playhouse village.  For a donation of $20, you can tour all the playhouses, inside and out.  This is a great deal, due to the playhouses shutting their doors for the remainder of the exhibition.  You can still tour the playhouse village for a $5 donation, but the only way of seeing inside is through their teeny teeny windows.  Be sure to check this event out if you’re in the area.  All the money raised goes to a great cause, and if you enter the raffle, you may just end up winning one of these playhouses.  Which will likely only be expensive as you dress up your actual home in order to not be shown up by the kid’s playhouse in the backyard.

Link to HomeAid

Link to Project Playhouse