Well, this is a little late.  Almost a Saturday wrap-up really.  What can I say?  It was a busy week!

Image via Treehugger

I find this new take on Tatami mats fascinating. (Treehugger)

A rug made out of cigarette butts?  That might be taking recycling a little far, even for me.  (DesignBoom)

Wild furniture restoration going on at Purpose Restoration – check out the flying knives on the the kitchen cart! (Design Green)

Great flat pack plywood stool design. (3rings)

Nice, simple re-use of old packing crates as drawers.  Hmmm…  I have some old wine crates… (Unplggd)

Charming, wool felt pillows based on science book illustrations. (BoingBoing)

And lastly,…

I thought I would include my own piece for HomePortfolio.com, which started out as a post on cork flooring, but really became a plea for the Iberian Lynx. (HomePortfolio)

Have a marvelous weekend everyone!  See you Monday!

This week’s delightful guest blogger is Linsi Brownson of Inspired Design Daily.

Thank you for following along with me this week.  I’ve enjoyed the change in blog scenery and I hope that you’ve gotten some benefit, or a least a laugh, out of the deal.  Before I go, I wanted to leave you with some inspiring images of antique furniture on the high market.

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This week’s delightful guest blogger is Linsi Brownson of Inspired Design Daily.

We spend a lot of time scouring flea markets for objets d’art to put in our store.  When we first started going it was a bit confusing.  Everything we saw either seemed to have endless potential or was just a bunch of old crap.  We really had no idea what we were looking for.  But then we began to ‘hone our craft’ and suddenly things were a lot clearer.  I honestly don’t know how that happened.  It was like we showed up one day and just knew…

But for the sake of having something relevant to say, I’m going to focus on the part after we just knew.  Here are some pointers for finding great deals at a flea market:

1. Give a moment to anything that grabs your attention.  After a while things start to blur and you feel like you’ve seen it before (if you frequent the markets you probably have seen it before) but if it makes you turn your head, go take a look.  It may be a shiny gem hidden in the rubble.  Read the rest of this entry »

This weeks terrific guest blogger is award winning kitchen and bath designer Susan Serra, of Susan Serra Associates.

I endorse the concept of reuse so very much that I want to provide more ideas on the topic of designing a kitchen with a reuse philosophy. Let’s go through some creative uses for items which might be cast off otherwise.

Furniture – I’ve used a sofa in two of my kitchens for seating at the dining table, both of which had been recently put out of use elsewhere in the home. The sofa must be elevated to be at the correct dining height. A new use for a sofa which may not fit elsewhere due to a recent move can add great comfort in the kitchen. I will never not have a sofa in my dining area; comfort in the kitchen is a requirement for me. And, of course, it does not have to be a sofa. Oftentimes, there is room for an upholstered chair of some sort in a lovely nook. Refinishing family heirloom dining furniture and chairs is a great way to keep green. I used my mother’s mid century Danish modern dining table in my breakfast room for some years and felt warm and fuzzy every time I looked at it, also admiring its authenticity. Read the rest of this entry »

We are so pleased to welcome this weeks guest blogger, award winning kitchen and bath designer Susan Serra, of Susan Serra Associates.

I am honored to be a guest blogger for The Interior Revolution, and the area of design that I specialize in is kitchen design. I am especially excited to talk about greening one’s kitchen because there are just so many interesting and innovative ways to create a green kitchen. Today, I’d like to focus on the philosophy of reuse.

I have personal experience designing an entirely new kitchen with a (mostly) reuse philosophy. Reuse, to me, by definition, means thinking creatively, first and foremost. You tap into a part of your brain that may be programmed by default to “buy new”. That IS how most of us are programmed! You change that preprogrammed channel to “reuse”, you open yourself bit by bit to finding useful AND creative solutions for your kitchen design, and miraculously, the solutions appear! Read the rest of this entry »

All images from Fire Farm

When the First Unitarian Society of Madison, WI asked Fire Farm to create light fixtures for the new addition to their historic Frank Lloyd Wright Meeting House, they had an unusual request.  Would the designers at Fire Farm please find a way to recycle the old copper roofing from the original building into the new fixtures?

Over 50 years old, and weathered to a soft green, the original roof tiles had character to spare.  Turn them over though, and the beautiful warmth shown out like a new copper penny. Read the rest of this entry »

My shoe hugger from Arcadia

I’m just back from a fun, but all too brief trip to the Bay Area, which included a trip to the recently (re)opened California Academy of Sciences, which you’ll hear more about tomorrow.  Until I get all those images and information ready to post however, I would like to take a moment to send some kudos to the Arcadia company for creating such a helpful bit of green.

You see, a couple of weeks ago I attended a mini-expo put on by IIDA in Orange County, and had a chance to talk with Niki Valdes of Arcadia about all their efforts to create sustainable contract furniture.

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Reduce, reuse, recycle…  Reduce, reuse, recycle…  Reduce, reuse, recycle…

When you work in the field of sustainable design, you hear that set of words so often it becomes almost meditative.  Ohm…..

But what do those words really mean when it comes to sustainable interiors?  How do they differ from some of the other “re” words, such as reclaim, or re-purpose?  Why are some more important for one product, but practically meaningless for another?

Allow us to try to help you sort it out.  The following is a list of some of the most common “re” terms used to describe sustainable materials, along with our own notes as to why and when it matters.  (All definitions are from Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary 11th ed., unless otherwise noted.)

Reduce - “to diminish in size, amount, extent or number”

There is a reason that ‘reduce’ is the first word of the holy trinity of green words.  It is, after all, the most basic and important concept.  Every time we remove something from it’s natural state of being, there is an impact on our planet.   The less we take, the more stable our planet becomes.

Although designers, by the very nature of what they do, must specify “stuff”, that stuff doesn’t have to be as resource intensive.  Imagine the difference in the amount of material used to make a simple, light weight, wall mounted shelf system, vs. a set of heavy, built-in bookshelves.  This principle applies to every imaginable product, but is often overlooked by both designers and manufacturers as an aspect of green. Read the rest of this entry »