Bright ideas for the home, Part I

NEW YORK — The challenge for the housewares designer now is complex: She must continually refine products that are already fairly useful and attractive. After all, the idea is to keep the consumer interested - and spending.

Thus, the manufacturers who arrived here last week for a preview of this year's International Home & Housewares Show, set for March 11-13 in Chicago, approached new levels of convenience and pleasing design. At least, they tried to.

The preview offered an East Coast taste of what's to come when 2,100 exhibitors descend on the Windy City to show off their newest and brightest. Here are some of the more interesting products presented:

Lifetime Brands' Perfect Tear tissue-paper holder. How, oh how do you stop the cat from unraveling an entire roll of toilet paper? With a special mechanism inside the roller that makes it impossible for pets and toddlers to waste sheet after sheet during playtime - and possible for you to tear off only as much paper you want, one-handed.

The holder comes in wall-mounted and single-stand options. Available in March at Bed Bath & Beyond; $6.99.

In a variation on the theme, Polder Home Tools makes the Single Tear Stick Paper Towel Holder, whose rubber base creates enough friction to allow a one-handed pull. Available in February from Bed Bath & Beyond and Amazon.com; $19.99.

Blueair's AirPod. A personal air purifier - just the thing for freshening the atmosphere at work, or taking along to hotels. At 13 inches tall and 1.7 pounds, the unit cleans a 35-square-foot area. And the compact, modern design (will Steve Jobs note the iPod similarity?) makes breathing easier attractive, too.

Available at Amazon.com, and Blueairstore.com; $99.95, replacement filters $39.95.

Enclume's kitchen wall racks. Hand-fabricated in Washington state, these handsome copper or hammered-steel designs mount to the wall and hold pots and pans, plus books and spices. Great for the home chef without a lot of free space to hang a forest of cookware.

Available at Fante's Kitchen Wares, 1006 S. Ninth St., Philadelphia; 215-922-5557. The 36-inch bookshelf rack: $180 in hammered steel, $514 in copper; other metals available in this size. The 24-inch bookshelf rack, $156 in hammered steel.