Green Options » furniture

Revamp Old Furniture Instead of Replacing

Becky Striepe — Wed, 20 May 2009 11:00:39 +0000

[Freshly stained dresser. Photo by Lenore MacLeod-Bickley]

We’ve all got pieces of furniture that look like they’re on the way out. When I first moved to Atlanta, a friend gave me a coffee table. I had no money and very little furniture, so I was grateful even though the table was sort of…well…it was ugly, alright? It was an ugly, ugly table. Rather than pitch it, I decided to give it a fresh coat of white paint and try my hand at a mosaic. We still have that little coffee table living out on the front porch! It’s a little bit dusty at the moment, but I’ll show you a picture if you promise not to judge my housekeeping skills:

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Handmade Steel Furniture Made from Old Cars

Allison Boyer — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 01:25:26 +0000

I came across The Weld House today, and love the concept - new furniture made from reclaimed sheet metal. Joel Hester’s studio makes furniture from 20+ year-old cars, and the products are beautiful.

Before:

After:

Cool. He’s located in Texas, and for handmade piece of art, the prices are actually quite resonable. Check out the website for more information.

Eco-Friendly Stains and Paints to Revive Old Furniture

Lenore MacLeod-Bickley — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 16:57:52 +0000

Throughout the years, my husband and I have inherited some interesting pieces of furnture. None of them would be considered antiques, and some are just hand-me-downs that we took without really knowing why. Two of these pieces of furntire were in our art/guest room, and every time we looked at them we wondered what we could do to make them more appealing. We realized that the answer was to sand them down and stain them, which definitely did the trick!

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An Alternative to Throw-Away Furniture

Kristin Dispenza — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 20:06:53 +0000

Since the Arts and Crafts Movement of the late 1800’s, there has been an uneasy relationship between good design and mass-production. In recent years, another concern has crept into the dialogue: sustainability. And for most buyers, inexpensive, easily-obtained — and disposable — furniture seems to carry the day.

But Seattle-based furniture design company Meyer Wells is interested in bringing craftsmanship and sustainability to the fore once again, and is making furniture that is anything but mass-produced: they do commissioned pieces, constructed from salvaged urban trees. Furniture designer John Wells and master craftsman Seth Meyer obtain trees which have been cut due to disease, damage, or development, and 99% of all their materials come from within 10 miles of the shop.

Meyer Wells is a triple bottom line business, and the company is addressing a wide range of social responsibility issues, from providing competitive salaries and health insurance for its employees to using the most durable and environmentally safe solvents, glues and finishes in their work. According to the company, “This is recycling taken to the next level.”

Image courtesy of Parsons Public Relations

Lessons from Little House on the Prairie

Aaron Szymanski — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 14:41:27 +0000

I’m reading a book about wood. The title is “Wood,” by Harvey Green. It’s written a bit like the slightly more popular and accessible books by a different author titled “Salt” and “Cod” by Mark Kurlansky. But “Wood” is about our use of wood in home construction, furniture, machinery, packaging, religion—everything. In this book, the author makes many interesting observations, like the fact that although the saw was developed independently in many parts of the world and they are strikingly similar, some cultures designed saws to cut on the push stroke (Western) and others to cut on the pull stroke (Eastern). I think this is fascinating.

He also writes about a time in our past when almost everyone had some knowledge of working with wood because everyday activities like farming, cooking, cleaning traveling, required implements that needed to be made out of wood.

Now that I have read it, this seems so obvious. Back in Laura Ingalls’ time, you couldn’t just go to the store and buy everything you needed like we can today (alas, Mr. Oleson’s store was well stocked but not like what you can find at Wal-Mart). Still, what a cool common bond they all had. I feel a little envious of what seems like a really artistic skill, but then I think that this is sort of how computers are for us today. Almost everyone has to have some knowledge of a computer interface in order to help get our jobs done (supposedly) faster and more efficiently.

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Eco-Friendly Interior Design: Sustainable Furniture For Your Modern Home

Stancie Wilson — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 15:36:17 +0000

A modern take on a Victorian classic, the Cleo sofa is just one in a collection of completely sustainable and modern furniture. Greener Lifestyles, based in Seattle, WA doesn’t believe you have to sacrifice your health, the environment or good design for well-made, long lasting pieces for your home. Priding themselves on impeccible craftsmenship and attention to detail with 100% sustainability their goal, they’re always searching for the best non-toxic materials.

Responsibly harvested FSC-certified wood is used for the frame, while sustainably harvested rubber tree sap is turned into their biodegradable and mold, mite and mildew-resisting latex cushions. Anti-microbial and naturally fire-retardant organic wool is used with organic cotton for all cushion batting.

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GreenBuildingTalk: Furniture, Flooring, and More at NEOCON ‘08

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 19:28:46 +0000

Editor’s note: You might expect a post about an event called NEOCON to appear on Red, Green & Blue, but, as our friends at GreenBuildingTalk point out, NEOCON is a trade show for interior furnishings (with no particular ideological leanings, we’re guessing). The show took place in GBT’s hometown of Chicago, so they got a first-hand look at NEOCON’s green offerings. This post was originally published on Tuesday, June 17, 2008.

The National Exposition of Contract Interior Furnishings (NEOCON) was held this past week in Chicago, and GreenBuildingTalk was there to check out the unique combination of over 1,200 residential and commercial showrooms and exhibits. With our goal of discovering new green products, Josh and I made our way through the maze of office furniture, flooring, wallcoverings, and hundreds of chairs.

Amidst the legions of chairs, our first discovery was RealForm Technology’s plant-based polyurethane foams, products used for seating applications. The polyurethane foams contain 20% bio-based content, and the company’s laboratory trials have achieved even higher Bio-Polyol substitution, foams capable of being molded for any type of furniture, including sofas. RealForm’s Realbio foam product is leading the way in eco-friendly furniture foam, and is one to keep an eye on.

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Weekend

serenity_ii — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 15:26:32 +0000

So I wouldn’t say we were incredibly green this weekend, but we were relatively green.

The dude who lives on the other side of Mr. Obsessively Mowing hadn’t mowed in a long time–longer than it had been for us. So on the weekend, he mowed his yard. . .with a riding mower. . .then used a weedwhacker. . .then used a leafblower. . .then mowed again. . .while smoking. Way to cancel out your lack of pollution, dude.

Bill mowed too–with our reel mower, of course. He is much faster at that than I am. It’s nice to have all the leaves to enrich our soil.

We drove about 40 miles in an old pickup to go on a bike/trike ride. The colors were beautiful, we got to see some cool stuff, and it was a blast! In the beginning I was pulling the kiddo and was having trouble keeping up with Bill, but on the way back he pulled the kiddo and I got up in the 20 MPH range three times (I wouldn’t be utterly shocked to learn I was going 30 the first time, although it was probably more like 25).

We had a picnic. It wasn’t completely environmentally friendly, but we did pretty well. I used baby food containers to hold the pumpkin seeds we scooped out of our pumpkins when we made jack-o’-lanterns. We have two kinds of seeds–salted and sugar & spice. We took pudding (containers are recyclable), applesauce (organic, again in a baby food container), sandwiches (reusable containers), juice (in reused juice bottles), tap water (in Klean Kanteens), baby food (recyclable containers), organic chocolate, not-so-organic chocolate, fruit strips, granola bites, and I don’t know what all. It was an awesome feast, if I do say so myself. I did take a Ziploc bag to hold the silverware so it wouldn’t get the picnic bag messy. We used one recycled napkin.

I gave my son one of my old toys this weekend. Well, really it’s more like four of my old toys that are compatible.

We went to Goodwill to donate a whole bunch of stuff. Clothes, chairs, cookware, drinkware. . .so now there’s more space for the stuff we’ll actually use, which is nice. . .especially in the cookware department. Led to some interesting discussion:

Bill: Why did we get rid of the silicone brownie pan?

Karen: Because we have two glass ones now, so we don’t need to use something that gives off a smell when I use it.

Bill: But we kept our silicone muffin pan.

Karen: That’s because that’s the only one we have left, so if we give it away and I have a cupcake emergency, I’m in trouble. Don’t worry, there’s an iron one on my Christmas list.

Bill: That sounds light.

Karen: But good for us!

Bill: Until somebody drops it on a toe.

Karen: Well, would you rather have a broken toe or cancer?!

Bill: Well. . .either one would take a long time to heal. . .

He does raise a good point. Our gorgeous stainless steel pots and pans are pretty lightweight, but the other stuff we’re converting to is all pretty heavy. I have trouble holding my terra cotta roasting pan steady in one hand (it weighs about nine pounds), which makes it hard to scrape stuff out of it into a container. The glass stuff isn’t too bad, but the iron stuff is heavy and slightly complicated to take care of, since it can’t go in the dishwasher and has to be seasoned. Still, I’m sure it’s worth it. I’ve been smiling a lot in the kitchen lately.

Eco-Effective Furniture: DIY Packaging Projects

Elizabeth Redmond — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 14:24:59 +0000

When we order a new piece of furniture or new piece of technology for our home, it comes delivered in a box large enough for kids to build a fort in (what I did in an old refrigerator box once). There’s so much packaging that you have to call your trash service and request a special “large load” pick-up. I am ashamed to bring home a plastic bag from the grocery store when I forget my cloth, but how ashamed are we when we request this mountain of waste.

Well a recent graduate of Central St Martins’ Masters Industrial Design Program, Tom Ballhatchet, decided to use the guild in a constructive way. Instead of throwing away all this stamped foam packaging from his new flat-screen TV, Tom decided to construct an entertainment stand. It makes us think of the form of these extruded or stamped packaging part, oftentimes they are the same shape and size or have nice crevices that can serve as storage. My only wish in this project is that he found a way to incorporate the gigantic box and plastic wrap.

With this trend of Zero waste design and seeing packaging as superfluous, we are beginning to see even more products out there that use their packaging in the fully constructed form. Lite2Go’s packaging doubles as the actual lampshade leaving very little waste (the label and instructions for assembly). Designed by Knoed (i.e. know no-end), Lite2go is a good example of their mission statement- “taking into consideration the full life cycle of materials going into the products they design”. The packaging/shade is made of recyclable polypropylene plastic; and the electric cord and bulb can be recycled at the appropriate centers.

The interesting thing about this design is that it is just plain practical. One doesn’t have to be an eco-conscious consumer to see this. Why create extra packaging when it is unnecessary? Although the light is marketed as a green product, it could be marketed just as a light with a fun DIY surprise.

With this trend of cutting down on emissions and waste, we need to think beyond recycling. As recycling requires energy to break materials down into a new usable source, reusing materials for a new purpose is much more energy efficient. I challenge you to get creative with your waste and repurpose some of it at least once before you get rid of it.

Impress Your Friends With Modern Cardboard Furniture!

Michael dEstries — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 22:55:05 +0000

Looking for the ultimate way to accessorize your home in an environmentally-friendly manner? Look no further than the Cardboard Chair company; a modern design company specializing in, well, chairs completely made of cardboard.

Each of the designs contains a minimum of 30% recycled fiber and are free of all formaldehyde/urea. In terms of strength, even the largest of people can be supported. If you happen to spill on your fine paper furniture, a non-toxic, environmentally-friendly coating called ReviveX repels the liquid and protects the material.

When 'Wallpaper' magazine tells you that it's time to change styles, you can always just flip your cardboard pieces out to the road and have them recycled. It would be ever more interesting if these things were loaded with seeds so you could plant them when done; but I'm not sure if that process would gel with manufacturing.

What's the price of going with cardboard over traditional materials? Well, remember this is modern 'design' we're talking about. One chair alone will set you back almost $525! Interested in a bar stool? That will be $430! Here's to hoping such prices come down and we see some more recycled cardboard making its way into the furniture industry. Viva the 3Rs! Hit the site for more!

Source: CardboardChair.com