You may have noticed a rather pronounced silence around this here blog lately. The reasons are many, varied, and mostly boring to go into. Suffice to say, circumstances required a little unplanned for time off, but we are back and ready to roll up our sleeves once again.

So look for new product reviews, artisan profiles, and all the other stuff we have always enjoyed sharing with you, plus some new ideas we’ve been percolating during the down time.

Thanks for sticking around, Dear Readers! We’ll try to make it worth your while.

Rachel

I don’t know about you, but for me, 2012 has been great so far!  Everything seems to be falling into place, and I haven’t enjoyed work and life this much in years.  The only downside is that I’ve been so busy getting all my ducks in a row (The Mighty Marching Mallards, coming to your town soon – ha!), that I have been sadly neglecting this poor little blog.

Now, I’ve never liked it when bloggers continually post about how sorry they are that they aren’t continually posting.   However, I thought it might be worth it to let you know that this situation should soon change.  While Emerald continues to keep you up to date on cool new products and artisan makers, I’ll be developing some new features, reorganizing the old, and preparing content that really calls to me.  Sort of a spring cleaning and future planning combined into one.

So sit back and stay tuned.  This year has “awesome’ written all over it!

Thanks for visiting!

Rachel

Working Wednesday posts will now reside at their new home on Hulan Design’s blog.

This will help make room for other post ideas I have for this blog (not that I actually have time to make any of them happen, but that’s another story).

~ Rachel

My new company…

So excited to share it with you!  I’m still devoted to sustainable interior design, but will now be doing more consulting, writing, speaking, and outreach.  I’m on the road right now, but will tell you more about it when I get back.

Thanks for visiting!

Rachel

This is going to be an big year for The InterioREvolution and we couldn’t be more excited!  Readership has more than doubled in the last couple of months, and looks to continue its rapid growth through 2012, so now is the time to take things to the next level.

Starting in February, we will have month long sponsorships available on our blog!  These won’t just be banners hovering around the perimeter, hoping that someone will notice them and ask them to dance.  No, we want our support to be stronger than that, so in addition to a banner, each sponsor will also get a dedicated blog post describing their company and product, and why we are so happy to have them with us for the month, in a addition to promotion through our social media platforms on the day of the post.  Lots of exposure, but not a lot of expense.

Interested?  Contact us for information on pricing, banner requirements, and availability.

The foundations have been poured and the framing is going up!  I’m excited to see this LEED project take form.

Here is the link to the home’s website where you can follow the progress – Newport Beach Green Home.

This is going to be a VERY SHORT post.  As in, “I have to leave to pick my son up from camp in 15 minutes – OMG! where did the day go?” short.*

On Friday I went to BlogHer’11 with my fellow adventurer Nicole.  We took the train, which was an epic adventure in and of itself (always read your train schedule VERY carefully).

Nicole is the cute one on the right, getting, ahem, “tickled” by Elmo.

All in all, BlogHer’11 was a bit surreal, hence the picture.  I won’t even go into the sausage guy in the sun costume.  It defies description.

We walked the floor, attended some great panels (much food for thought), and generally had a good time.

Oh, and I was in a design challenge…

Lowe’s Creative Ideas Magazine (which I didn’t even know existed, but is actually pretty interesting), sponsored a design competition to see who could come up with the most creative use for a bucket full of fairly random hardware pulled off their store shelves.  They had us form groups of 5, and I was lucky enough to join these amazing ladies -

Emily Steers of Happy Home Blog

Suki of Super Duper Fantastic

Shannon Schulte & Megan Montgomery of Sweepstakes Mama

Between the five of us, we managed to come up with the jewelry organizers you saw in the last picture.  I think they’re not too bad for something designed and constructed in just one hour!  In the midst of the craziness of painting, sawing, cutting and glue gunning, somebody said “just glue and screw!”, and thus the name of our team was born.

Supposedly there is video of all of this, and when it is up, I’ll share the link (if I don’t look too ridiculous).  Meanwhile…

Thanks for visiting,

Rachel

* Well, I was TRYING to get this post done before I left, but even that proved too much to manage.  This has been a heck of a Monday.

Dear Readers,

Thank you so much for stopping by to check out my blog.  Sustainable interior design is both my profession and my passion, and I always love sharing my knowledge with you.  Unfortunately, I wound up in the hospital for several days earlier this week and have had to leave you, dear readers, in the lurch.  I won’t go into details – this is, after all, a blog on interior design, not medical conditions (although boy was that a nasty shade of peachy beige in my hospital room!).  Suffice to say that I am home and on the road to recovery.  I’m very much looking forward to rejoining you on Monday and sharing more great finds, as I so enjoy doing.

Of course, a funny thing happened while I was away from my blog – it wound up in the voting for The Homies Best Green Blog!  I am in wonderful company, and honored to be there.  If you are here visiting because you saw The InterioREvolution on the list and wanted to check it out – Welcome!  Please feel free to wander around in the archives, and get a taste for what we do.

Uh-oh.  My husband is starting to glare at me for “working” when I’m supposed to be resting, so I’m going to go back to lying here like a slug.  It’s my only defense.

Rachel

Here is a nice video of a lovely green home for sale in our area.

I realize that it doesn’t look like what we usually think of as a green home, and that is exactly the point.  From the integrated solar roof tiles to the heavy duty insulation, the sustainable aspects of this home are largely hidden.  And yet, they are very, very effective, allowing this home to achieve one of the highest GreenPoint Rated scores ever given.

And those fancy Viking appliances in the kitchen?   Purchased from Habitat for Humanity’s ReStore.  Man, I need to go shopping there!

In any case, I had the pleasure of getting to know the couple behind this terrific home, and even helped them get a hold of  some of the sustainable furnishings to showcase.  If you watch when the video pans to the dining room, you will see one of William Stranger’s gorgeous wood slab tables.  And the rugs featured throughout are handwoven of sustainable, vegetable dyed yak wool and wild silk, (I’ll be writing more about the rugs in another post).   Online eco-friendly home furnishings retailer My Sparrow also contributed some of their great accessory items, such as artwork, pillows and bath products.

So, enjoy the video, or if you are in Southern California area, see about getting a tour at one of the open houses.  It’s a terrific project, and well worth seeing.  Oh, and many of the items you will see are available for purchase, so if you see something you can’t live without, feel free to contact me and I will get you more information and let you know who to contact.

“…I’m leaving today.  I want to be a part of it: New York, New York”

Well, actually, I’m not leaving till next Tuesday, but I just couldn’t wait to tell you that I will be in New York next week!

I’ll be at the Cliff Young showroom at the NYDC, representing Homeportfolio.com, for what should be a lively and informative discussion on green design.  Personally, I can’t wait to see Cliff Young’s Machinist Table in its new, greener version!

So if you are a designer (or design enthusiast) in New York City, please stop by the Cliff Young showroom at the NYDC, on Wednesday, September 22nd, at 7:30 PM.  And if you’re there, be sure to say “hi”.  I’d love to meet you!