Last night we completed our first ever Homies Awards, celebrating the best in home blogging in 2008, and it's my pleasure today to announce five six winners.

It was an impromptu, get the ball rolling kind of affair this year that was meant in the best of spirits to direct attention at the Home Blog niche (because no awards ceremonies do), to award a bit of money ($100) and share as much link love as possible from our sites to others (some of which are bigger than us, some of which are smaller).

I firmly believe that the web works best when there's mutual cooperation, and we've certainly benefited from the help of others...

This year we received about 200 amazing nominations across five categories that showed the richness of the home niche (home technology is still woefully underserved). Some of the winners were surprising and some were expected, but all the races were exciting showed reader's fervor for their favorite sites. Check out the winners!

Congratulations to all, and here's a ton of link love comin' at you:

Best Home Decor: Design*Sponge
Runner up: Door Sixteen

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Best Home Cooking: Vegan Explosion
Runner up: Smitten Kitchen

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Best Children's Design: Inhabitots
Runner up: Oh C'Chou

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Best Green Home Design: Green Goody
Runner up: Inhabitat

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Best Home Tech: Engadget & Gizmodo (A Tie!)