This weeks guest blogger is David Johnson of Sidecar Furniture.   An accomplished craftsman, David is also a member of LA Box Collective, a select group of professional Los Angeles based furniture makers, committed to environmentally conscious design and production.

I’m just fascinated by woven chair seats.  Years ago I got this book, The Caner’s Handbook, and started working my way through all of the patterns.  To make a long story short, I eventually worked for the author of that book, Jim Widess, at his shop in Berkeley, The Caning Shop.  I helped them with repairing chair frames and they taught me new weaving patterns.

Now a big part of my business is repairing chairs with woven seats and I sometimes struggle with communicating with clients about their chairs because the terms used for weaving patterns and materials are obscure.  Most people refer to any woven seat as caned and this often leads to confusion so I’m here to clear the air on some of the more common weaving patterns and materials.

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Our guest blogger this week is Wes Harding, President of Harding Construction & Sustainable Solutions. He is a college instructor, general contractor, certified green home rater, and energy auditor. He can be reached at www.hardingconstruction.biz

Baby steps are a good start!

So you’ve taken all the steps during your remodeling project to make sure what you bring in to your home doesn’t have toxic chemicals which could off gas and make you sick. You installed cabinets made out of grass, used zero VOC paints, non toxic based glues, FSC certified wood flooring and tile containing recycled content. Do you have a green home? The answer is no. Why? There is no silver bullet to green home and lifestyle, but instead a thousand silver BBs. Doing just a few green things, although very important, are only small steps. Read the rest of this entry »