Valentino Spring 2012

As I flipped through magazine after magazine, a particular trend caught my eye.

Louis Vuitton Spring 2012

Designers were embracing lace.

Dolce & Gabbana Spring 2012

A LOT of lace.

Which means that the current trend for vintage lace in interiors is only going to get stronger.  But how do you embrace the look without going full on frilly?  Here are some suggestions….

First off, you should limit yourself to only one, at most two, lace items in a room.  This vintage lace hanging lamp, from Etsy seller Nice, makes a great statement, without seeming fussy.  Plus, the shadows from the lace further soften the room.

Speaking of softening a room, that is the second thing you should take away from this post – lace works best as a way to introduce a softer line to rooms that would otherwise seem too harsh or stark.  So if there is a room in your house that feels dead or cold, try adding a touch of lace.

Lastly, keep in mind that the vintage lace look doesn’t actually have to be, well,… lace.  It can take the form of a stenciled floor…

a pretty piece of decorative ceramic (love these bird bowls!)…

or even a concrete curtain.

So go on, give vintage lace a try.  You KNOW you want to!

Oh, and to find out more about these images, and many other cool ways to use lace, check out my Trending – Vintage Lace board on Pinterest.

Thanks for visiting!

Rachel

John Stein is into demolitions, but not in the way one might think.  The founder and president of California-based Kirei USA has a knack for finding the possibilities inherent in the unwanted.

This vision shows clearly in every Kirei product, including the newest line, Windfall.  These engineered panels are produced in partnership with Windfall Lumber, which takes Douglas & Hemlock Fir from deconstructed buildings in the Pacific Northwest and brings the reclaimed wood to fresh, new life.

“It’s great to reuse demolition material that would otherwise take up space in the landfill,” says Mr. Stein.  “Having it become beautiful wood panels is even better.  This is old-growth wood that just can’t be found any more, and we get to bring it to designers.”

Windfall is manufactured in the United States using low-VOC adhesives.  The reclaimed wood is milled into strips of differing width, which are then randomly stacked to form the panels and cut to size.  Panels are available either solid or 3-ply with a NUAF/FSC-certified core.  They may come unfinished, with a clear coat that shows off the natural grain, or stained and prefinished in Anthracite, Mocha, Ivory, and Leather colors.  The result adds to any interior.

And as Windfall gives stylish new life to reclaimed wood, so the other Kirei lines bring new purpose to certain types of agricultural waste.  Kirei Board, Kirei Coco Tiles, and Kirei Wheatboard use reclaimed agricultural fiber from plants commonly grown for food around the world.

After harvest, waste from sorghum (an edible grass), coconut, and wheat plants is usually thrown into landfills or burned.  Now much of this unused material is removed from the waste stream, reducing landfill use and air pollution while giving rural farmers a new source of revenue.  Rapidly renewable or FSC-certified wood are used as bonding strips, greatly reducing the need for newly harvested wood for building.

Manufacture can be more involved than with particle board.  For example, with Kirei Board the sorghum stalks are compressed, washed, and woven into sheets.  The latter are then stacked and heat-pressed with a formaldehyde-free adhesive to create blocks, which are cut to desired size.

Kirei offers a similar product made of Moso bamboo.  The plantations from which this fiber is taken are generally reclaimed farmland, which helps to preserve uncut habitat.  Panels are available in a wide variety of colorways, including the luscious looking new Chocolate, probably the favorite out of all the bamboo treatments that I’ve yet seen.

These four products are suitable for architectural millwork, cabinetry, flooring (though not in high traffic areas), wall displays or covering, furniture, and decorative objects – in short, any application where one would normally think of using wood.

To round out this versatility Kirei came out with their Canamo Hemp Panels.  These are made with a no-added-formaldehyde resin and reclaimed hemp hurd fiber left over from fabric & seed oil manufacture: over 70% post-industrial recycled content.  The panels are produced in 48”x96” size and are offered in a variety of thicknesses, all left unfinished so that designers may best tailor the product to individual need.  According to Kirei, the hemp panels may be used for the purposes above.  Ceiling panels are also available.

Collectively, the Kirei philosophy may yield several LEED credits for one’s project, which in itself is wonderful, but there’s much more to it that that.

The word kirei is a Japanese adjective signifying many meanings, including Clean, Pure, Beautiful, and Truthful.  Under John Stein’s direction the company strives to embody its namesake as an ideal.  His business aims to stimulate the economic activity of its source regions by providing new jobs at fair market wages.  By using recycled products and efficient, sustainable practices, Kirei works to lessen humanity’s impact on natural resources while contributing to clean, healthy, and aesthetically pleasing indoor environments… with a eye to the latter quality.

“Green has to be beautiful,” says Mr. Stein.

“If you’re going to do green for green’s sake you’re going to have a very limited market – people who have health issues or people with a conscience.  If you have beautiful materials that happen to be green, then really they’re open to everybody.  I regard it almost as a gateway drug to other green activities.”

With the visual appeal of the Kirei product, perhaps we’ll see many new converts to the sustainable ethic.  Let’s hope so.

~ Emerald

Images courtesy of Kirei USA.

Vigor, the seriously awesome, recycled, drag racing steampunk dragon sculpture by Etsy artisans Reclaim2Fame.

Just look at that face!

And look at that attention to detail.  Love!

The Year of the Dragon is considered the luckiest of the twelve years in the Chinese zodiac.  Whoever snaps up this amazing little guy will be lucky indeed.

By the way, if the price tag for Vigor has you spitting your coffee out on the screen, take heart.  Reclaim2Fame also makes more affordable sculptures, like this adorable robot dog.

Thanks for visiting!

Rachel

My Grandparents on their wedding day

I’m writing this in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. and all others who stand up for what they believe.

My father’s parents weren’t particularly “green”.  Although they were fairly frugal, as so many of their generation were, they loved to keep their thermostat set at about 72° F (22.2° C) all year long.  The A/C was on constantly in the summer, and the heater blasted away day and night in the winter.  They wore polyester clothes, drank a Coke every day at lunch, drove huge gas guzzling cars (again with the A/C blasting), and generally didn’t think much more about the environment than that there should be one.  So how did they teach me anything about sustainable design?

The short answer is, nothing – and everything.  The long answer is this…

In 1963, at the height of the civil rights era, my grandparents stood their ground and did the right thing.  They aren’t famous, and you’re not likely to read about them in a textbook.  They quietly went about their lives afterwards, and didn’t discuss it much unless asked, but what they did was inspiring.

My grandfather was the minister to a large, affluent church in Jackson, Mississippi at the time.  He had been there for some time, and was well liked, but racial tensions in the South were high, and he had been told not to discuss or preach about civil rights.  Although he was very active with an interracial ministers group, and worked with a nearby “negro” college, he kept his sermons about civil rights subtle.  My grandmother also felt strongly about civil rights, and joined an interracial prayer group, which was an illegal and dangerous thing to do at the time.  They were in correspondence with Martin Luther King, Jr. and his wife, amongst other civil rights activists.  Still, their actions ran mostly under the radar, and life remained fairly comfortable for them.

That all changed the Sunday two young, African American women came to worship at the church.  Theirs was a coordinated effort, happening at several churches. A gentle, but pointed, attempt to integrate the communities.  As my grandfather preached his sermon, unbeknownst to him, the women were turned away and told they could not worship there.  When my grandfather found out later, he was incensed, as was my grandmother.  The next Sunday, my grandfather gave a fiery sermon, letting his congregation know that the church was God’s house, and no one should be turned away, especially for the color of their skin.  Although many in the congregation agreed with him, a powerful and vocal group did not.  My grandfather was given the opportunity to, essentially, renounce his position on civil rights and agree not to bring it up again.  He refused, and shortly thereafter, he acquired the distinction of being the only minister in Jackson, MI to be fired for standing up for civil rights.   He and my grandmother were left without income, home (it belonged to the church), or much in the way of prospects.  For awhile, things were quite difficult for them.

What my grandparents didn’t know at that bleak time was the enormous gift they had just given to a granddaughter who was still years from making her appearance on this earth.  Everything I needed to know about “doing the right thing” I learned from what they did.  Their actions taught me about strength of character, and how important it is to do things that, at the time, aren’t convenient, easy, or popular, but still, at their core, very necessary.

I have faced my share of quizzical faces, shaken heads, and downright naysayers in my 8 years of working in sustainable design, but nothing I will do will ever approach the bravery my grandparents showed.   Yet their actions made it possible for me to take that leap of faith, skip the high paying “decorator’ career track, and do what I truly believed in.

I miss you Poppy and Grandmommy.  Thank you so much.  I hope you would be proud of me.

Rachel

P.S.  Please read this post from Treehugger to see another take on the connections between sustainability and the civil rights movement.  Bonus video of MLK’s full “I Have a Dream” speech.

Today, however, the sheer energy-inefficiency of a traditional fireplace can make it a less-than-desirable fixture in one’s household.  Yet the allure of captive flame remains.  So, how to satisfy that ancient longing?

Why, bypass the fireplace, of course.

Enter Wall Flame I & II, the sleek brain-children of Michael Rösing, managing director of Radius Design, in Brühl, Germany.  Gone is the large, surrounding containment structure, gone the flue, gone the chimney.  In short, gone is the fireplace itself, and in its place is left a simplicity of flame.

All the romanticism, with none of the attendant mess.  Perfect.

Both versions offer a high-grade steel base – the Wall Flame I featuring a curved, one-piece mounting system, while the Wall Flame II’s rear piece is shielded in glass.  They’re available in a variety of different materials, including tinted glass and high-gloss, brushed, or powdered stainless steel.

Both styles can be installed in nearly any type of home.  They’re safe, user-friendly, and boast low fuel consumption.  The appliance’s combustion chamber houses a “ceramic sponge” that assures a stable, even, fully adjustable flame that will burn for up to four hours at a time.  In addition, the appliance is TÜV® approved, which attests to its quality.

Splendid… but why feature it on a blog for sustainable interior design?

Put simply, it burns clean.  Eschewing the conventional use of propane or natural gas, Wall Flame (like of all of Radius’ Home Flame Collection) runs on liquid bio-ethanol.  The fuel burns residue free and largely produces steam and carbon dioxide.

Visit Radius Design to find out more.

~ Emerald

Did you read the whole thing?  Good, because I think The Bloggess has touched on something really important.

Namely, we have to indulge ourselves from time to time with something that is true to our nature, no matter how ridiculous or silly others may find it to be.  For me it was painting my nails a bright, sparkly blue – just in time to have my photo session for new publicity shots.  Three hours of me, posing like a (not terribly good) model, all with a celestial blue manicure.  I almost talked myself out of it beforehand, reasoning that it might look a bit to silly for someone of my age (which my son always tells me is 29 – bless his wonderful soul!), and instead I should stick to a more conservative “arty” color like beige or gray.  But then I realized that silly is really who I am, so why hide it?

Really, why should any of us hide it?  Why should any of us live with beige nails if we feel like having blue ones instead.  Or buy a beige sofa because a red one just seems like such a commitment, even though it’s always been your dream?

And that’s the trick to all of this when it comes to our homes.  It has to be your dream – an expression of who you are deep down.  Although the purchase can be impulsive, the desire has to live inside you for a long time.  That is how you know you won’t regret it, because it is who you really are.

So what is your “red sofa”?  What is the thing you really wish you had the guts to do, but haven’t taken that leap of faith yet?

the execution is most definitely not!   This is the Mood Rocking Bed by Shiner International, and it has style!

I just have to say, I don’t know whether it’s the pastoral setting, the pretty draping of the netting above, or simply that I need a nap, but that bed looks awfully tempting, don’t you think?

Created from discarded and reclaimed materials, the Mood Rocking Bed is suitable for inside and outside use, and can be made in any size, from twin to king.  It can also be allowed to rock in place, or it can be locked in any position using rubber stoppers.

Visit Shiner International’s Etsy store and see more great furniture and lighting creations.

Thanks for visiting!

Rachel

Kidding.  It’s a chair.  Shocking for a design blog to write about a chair, right?

But this isn’t just any chair.  It’s the Katra Chair by Aparte Studio of France, and it is made from a very interesting material.

Although this may look like a nice, woven fiberglass, it is in fact made of a composite using ramie.  In other words, it is made largely of nettle fibers!

I love that something this sleek and modern in design could be made from one of the oldest fiber crops known to mankind.  The potential for eventually replacing the more problematic fiberglass with a rapidly renewable plant product is also exciting.

Thanks for visiting!

Rachel

 Seen on Yanko Design

The Salone Internazionale del Mobile is calling to me.  Loudly.

Anyone else thinking of going?

Rachel

Okay, so I’m a sucker for the Victorianesque.  But isn’t it exquisite?  Thanks to the collaboration of Glasgow architectural model makers Finch & Fouracre and the folks at Another Studio for Design in London, U.K., one needn’t have a grand estate in order to own a beautiful Victorian hothouse… in miniature, that is.

As it was designed to emulate the ornate steelwork of 19^th-century greenhouses the Plantini is a lovely accent piece in its own right, but there’s a practical reason to like it.  It’s environmentally friendly.

The kit comes in a box of 100% recycled paperboard, and the biodegradable planting pot is composed of bamboo and rice hulls.  The greenhouse frame itself is made of stainless steel.  Its avowed purpose is that of planter – to shelter one’s seedlings or nurture flowers – which means it can also help improve the indoor air quality of one’s home or office.

A removable canopy and etched glass panes brings light to the plants inside.

Also in the flat-packed DIY kit are viola seeds, the compressed compost in which to plant them, and instructions.  Once assembled, the model greenhouse is 9.5 cm (3.75″) tall, and would make a lovely conversation piece atop a desk, tucked on a windowsill, or on an entranceway table.

The Plantini is available here at the Postgarden website.

~ Emerald