Green Homes for Real People

Forget everything you learned or heard so far about green homes, forget about costly projects and endless budget overtakes – you haven’t experienced the real deal yet. Practically, you don’t know anything about green culture and green buildings unless you put foot in a Frank Lloyd Wright house before. Born a century and a half ago, Frank Lloyd Wright was one of the most prolific American architects, as well as an interior designer, writer and educator, who sketched over 1,000 projects, which resulted in more than 500 completed works. Pretty popular back in his times, he was also recognized, post-mortem, in 1991 by the American Institute of Architects as “the greatest American architect of all time.”

                Eager promoter of the organic architecture, Wright believed in a new era of sculptures and designs that were not only durable, eye-catchy and comfortable, but also harmless to nature and its wild life. What does this has to do with today’s green structures and homes, you might ask? Well, almost everything as, conscious or not, many architects today follow into his footsteps and promote sustainable living and buildings, with power efficient utilities, natural lighting and zero wastes.

                If you are willing to start a project of green housing on your own, you might want to take a few things into consideration, and what better way to learn, if not to step into one of Wright’s creations, the Malcolm Willey House in Minneapolis. This is only one of its late works, but it’s a vivid house, full of history and a real bliss to watch.

                The house was built by Nancy Willey, Wright’s wife, in 1934 and later restored to perfection by Steve Sikora and Lynette Erickson Sikora. This was the architect’s most famous and pretty affordable project, as well as a small one, a prototype to his later Usonian homes. Also, Wright’s Usonian project was later declared as the typical American house, a home “for the common people.”

When the actual owners purchased this house in 2002, it was already scared by many generations before and filled with kitsch elements, including a pumpkin-colored plastic laminate. However, the Sikoras spent over 6 years and numerous thousands of dollars to restore to its perfect, almost natural state the Malcolm Willey House. During the renovations, the Sikora husbands understood the master’s preference for natural, durable materials which will last in time unwashed.

The house was later restored making full use of materials like cypress, plaster and regional brick, while using the shade provided by four mature burr oaks to cool the house in a natural way, without too much usage of modern air conditioning.

Moving on to the decorations of the house, most of them were kept untouched by time too, a living proof being the kitchen which is fully equipped with functional vintage appliances that stand out for the relative simplicity of the 30’s years. One of the best features of the house, as well as a trademark signature used by many modern architects after, the wall of doors, stands out in the living room. The wall was made by French doors covered with glass, a pioneering and quite exquisite feature in 1934, lives room and background for the beautiful garden, by creating an airy and natural lighted pavilion.

Another well appreciated feature of the house comes out from the master bedroom, in the shape of the corner windows that sing out, expanding the room in space and offering it a more luminous touch.

By taking knowledge of these features of Wright’s vintage house, you might want to start building your own dream green home and exploit some of the ideas the architect put into his wonderful work.

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Green 101

Maybe you decided that your old lifestyle doesn’t suit you anymore and you want to go on a different direction – good, we support and salute your decision! Of course, we are talking about finally going to the “bright” side of nature, ecology, to be more précised. However, changing your lifestyle over night is not only highly impossible, but also quite dangerous from many aspects, starting with the way you eat, the way you sleep, the way you household and even the way you drive. But no matter how newbie or untrained in this field you are, remember that you already did the first step to a better world for us all! The rest just comes with time, practice… and some good pieces of advice from the more experimented ones in the field; below is the 101 Green Guide you will need and some very simple and practical solution you need to take into consideration.

                The first and easiest step to start with is with your own house – by going green and organic within various aspects in your household, you will gain the necessary training to go even further and impose your ideas in other fields, like your job, your going out habits, and even the way you drive. But first things first: start shopping for organic food. Or, better yet, if your time and garden permits you, grow it yourself! It’s not hard at all – plant the seeds you need and want and take care of your crops as consciously as you do when playing Farmville. The benefits of growing your own organic crops are numerous, starting with the fact that you will eat much healthier and tastier than by purchasing regular groceries from the market. However, you can also go green in this field even if you don’t live on a house or you don’t have the time to take care of your garden. You can go green by significantly reducing the carbon footprint by shopping locally for fresh fruits and vegetables. Thus, not only you will enjoy tasteful greens, but you will also give nature a hand by not spending great amount of gas on food transportation daily.

                Secondly, take some spare time and indulge yourself in the green way – with your own natural and organic cosmetic treats, of course. There are plenty recipes online that will show you just the way you can do most of your used cosmetic products without spending ridiculous amounts of money on them and with the benefit of being 100% green as well – by making them on your own. You can make just about anything at home, from moisturizing lip balms and butters to cleansers, washers, creams, soap bars, shampoos, and even perfumes and makeup products. Thus, you will indulge yourself with quality and all-natural products that will benefit you more.

                Next, you can try reducing some of your house wastes by introducing basic rules to be followed by all members of your household: only turn on the lights in the room when natural lighting is not enough or necessary, turn off the lights whenever you leave the room, switch to reusable and organic products from dishes to bags and bins, use cloth instead of one-time-using tissues like when you wipe your hands or clean the table. Also, switch to economic electric bulbs.

                Last, but not least, invest into alternative energy solutions and a better house insulation to allow air and heat circulate well while keeping your feet warm and your energy bills cold during winter.

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Go Royal – Chairs That Make You Feel Like a King

Do you have any idea how many hours you spent sitting daily? Considering that you have an office 9 to 5 job and that it takes you approximately 30 minutes by car to get to the job, including the daily hour you take for lunch, dinner at home and maybe some other unfinished business you need to attend from your home office, this would easily sum up around 10 and a half hours, up to 12 hours per day used to sit down. Taking this into consideration, it is easily to assume that, since we do spent such amount of time sitting, we might as well spent it comfortable and pleasant. Thus, it comes as no surprise that during the last decades the chairs industry developed massively, leading to new technologies used to build more comfortable chairs with functions of the most variable, from ultra comfort to lowering the pressure on the bones, with massage included, made out of leather and so on.

                However, there is one thing that truly makes us feel better and gives a whole royal dimension to the way we seat – high seat back chairs that look as if we would sit on a throne. No wonder that our ancestors, especially at the royal courts, preferred to have high seat back thrones in their kingdoms; besides the security and comforting offered, a high seat back chair imposes by dimensions, giving greatness to the one sitting, offering him the position he earned.

                But long gone are the days when we needed a noble rank to procure ourselves a similar sort of chair; luckily for us, we live in a consumerism area, where, if you want something, probably there was someone else before you thinking of that and selling it as well.

                Now, all you need to feel like royalty is time to search for the perfect item and, of course, enough deposit space to take full advantage of your acquisition. Going online at alibaba.com, you will encounter a whole world of trading and buying possibilities which can lead you one step closer to the royal chair you deserve being the boss of your company or the head chief of your house unit.

                If you have enough time to spare and wander through hundreds of furniture and antique stores, you will for sure find the perfect piece to sit on. However, here are some suggestions that might narrow your searches: concept stores and furniture selling stores like Innova, Intro or Kare might offer you the best solutions in terms of chairs at quite affordable prices. Search for pieces like the Tibidabo seat made out of painted aluminium and twined fibers.

                If you are trying to go for a more minimalist, high-class style, the Wanders Tulip chair made out of steeling steel and rigid PU tapestried with fabrics might be the perfect solution. Also, if you are going for the royal style all the day, you might as well do it in style and purchase the Wonderland chair, with oak structure and velvet tapestry, from Kare.

                Another great style of high seat back chair is the Pompadour, made out of polyresin and fabric. The Baskett chair, launched in 2011 was designed by Matthias Demacker and consists of royal colors and textile tapestry; this and several others tempting designs you can find by going at www.softline.dk. 

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Furniture Trends and Tendencies for August

Last month of summer comes with all sort of hot tendencies, no matter what area we talk about: from hot and urban prints in fashion, to cool lines to be followed in art, music, interior designing and others. And because August is also the month when most people decide to “get things done” either by going on vacations, either by renovating, buying, building, if you are a part of those who redecorate and renovate, you need to stay focused and in-style; and what better way to do so, if not to read about some of the coolest trends and tendencies in terms of furniture in this hot, summer month?

·         This time you would be better focused on unconventional, modern and even crazy pieces of furniture that will for sure enlighten your rooms and add value to the space you are living in. With no further introductions, I give you the hottest trend in furniture of August – the knob-lamp. New in the collection of Miniforms brand, the Umpalampa reading lamps are the ultimate hit of 2011. Made out of wood and painted steel, you can find them in three different colors and for sure will lighten your day (and your room!), not to mention how happy the fans of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” will be by purchasing this “oompa-loompa” modern lamp.

·         Moving on to the “technological” furniture pieces, we encounter the Air bed, produced by Italian brand Lago. Its foundation is amazing, being composed of adjustable height glass panels. The bed features a metallic structure and can be customized by choosing its bed-leaf, the tapestry or the additional shelf.

·         From the furniture brand Porro comes the latest Showcase table which allows you to stock, just like a shelf, different objects, whether we talk about books, glasses, paper goods or even clothing. The table is made out of painted wood and glass by the Front team of the brand Porro, and it for sure look like a modern, minimalist piece of furniture that will add statement to your room.

·         Yet another extremely hot and en-vogue piece for this summer is the new Grid collection from designer Kensaku Oshiro for Varaschin. His collection composes of different modulus that can be combined in surprising ways to end up in a coffee table, a regular table, a sofa, chair and others. Ingenious and practical, don’t you think? Well, it all comes from the different foundation structures used, which have various dimensions and are made out of painted steel, while the pillows consist of PU and textile fabrics. The really good news is that, due to the used steel structures, you can both place them inside and outside, making them the perfect furniture for terraces, balconies, or even spacious rooms like living rooms.

·         The Swedese brand, one of the representative north design furniture pieces, comes on the market with a new product called the Accent couch; its distinction is given by the lines and shapes used, as well as the equilibrated chromatics. The structure and the legs of the couch consist of massive oak-tree wood, which makes it durable, strong, but also delicate and gentle due to the calm colors used like lavender, mint, pale orange or butter-yellow.

·         The Varaschin brand proposals for this year’s Milan furniture fair bring into spotlight a rigorous geometry, in which the elements combine themselves graphically, in a perfect order manner. An example to state this is given by the Orsay chiffonier has a perfect rigorous graphic, almost looking too steep. 

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Easy Green Habits to Adopt at Home

If you want to take full advantage of a green experience, you should start by completely changing your entire lifestyle, from the way and how you eat, to the way you shop, dress, take care of your house and the environment, the way you drive or clean your house. I know, it might seem scary at the beginning, but by adopting a green and sustainable lifestyle you will be healthier, live longer, and also take care of the nature so that the following generations will also find joy in the green life.

                And if you would like to start living a bit greener but don’t know where to start from, here are some simply but efficient ideas to start improving your lifestyle by home.

1.       Green your meals with a simple dish washing routine

The old and familiar slogan “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” rings a bell? Well, mainly, it’s still the way the things are done. By taking a look back to our grandparents and how they used to run their households simply will enlighten us and reveal us a new way of taking care of our houses, without too much of a waste. Closing the water when you clean your dishes, turning off the lights when you’re leaving a room and keep them off during daylight is the best and most efficient way to start reducing waste within your house. As for the recycling part, it’s only a matter of common sense to put paper into the paper trash bin, plastic and garbage where they belong.

                The “reuse” part might be a little more challenging, especially if you are a fan of paper plates and plastic bowls for everyday meals. And while that might be useful for the later recycling part, using disposable flatware will come costly and pointless. Switch better to normal, durable and inexpensive dinnerware and don’t set on the dishwasher machine unless absolutely needed. Better clean dishes by scraping and then soaking them in the sink with some cold water using some dish detergent as well. However, if you still plan on setting the dishwasher, turn off the “heat dry” option that costs you useless energy and let dishes air-dry overnight. Washing full loads in the dishwasher typically spends less hot water than the hand-washed dishes, so after a dinner with many friends over, it is better to use the machine.

2.       Store food in a smarter way

Forget about conventional “reusable” plastic storage containers that end up in the garbage after not even 5 uses and better invest in a good set of oven and microwave-safe glass containers (especially porcelain ones) with quality plastic lids. Not only they will last much longer, but they are also safer and can be easily thrown away in the recycling bins once you’re done with them.

3.       Make small but intelligent changes to your laundry routine

Another easy and efficient way to go green within your home is by adding a few changes to your laundry routine. Best is to wash with full loads, which not only will save you water, but also electricity and natural gas. An easy way to ensure full loads is to have a laundry basket for each color or at least close ones and only to laundry when there are enough clothes in a basket. That way, you will ensure a more qualitative washing by using special programs to fit your colors, and you won’t worry about destroying clothes by color swaps. If you, however, need a special item to be cleaned by emergency, try and hand wash the cloth by using special, organic detergents. 

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