I’ve been noticing a lot of steampunk furniture and apartments on the home design blogs lately. For those of you who don’t know, steampunk is an art and design movement (there are also steampunk books) that adapts the aesthetics of Victorian technology for the modern world (the name “steampunk” refers to the era when steam power was still used). So, for example, a steampunk book might imagine what our world would be like if everyone rode around on zeppelins.

Disclosure: In case you can’t tell, I’m a huge Victoriana geek, and therefore a huge steampunk fan. But don’t take my word for it — check out steampunk design for yourself. One of Apartment Therapy’s house tours is of a steampunk Massachusetts home. Its owners painstakingly designed the house to fit their conception of the steampunk aesthetic, taking such steps as remodeling a vintage cooktop so that it was usable; installing their webcam inside a vintage camera; and hooking up a typewriter in front of their computer so that it looks like a device from an H.G. Wells novel, not something manufactured by Apple in the 21st century.

TreeHugger.com has also recently posted a few steampunk furnishings: check out these armchairs and aquariums made out of Estonian sea mines and chandeliers made out of old bike chains. Besides the fact that steampunk is, in my opinion, a very cool aesthetic, it’s also worthwhile because it often relies on reusing recycled materials in inventive ways. It’s hard to go wrong with a combination of aesthetically pleasing and environmentally friendly.