Category Archives: Recycled products

New Patio Furniture and Home Plans

Posted on May 23, 2011 | 1 Comment

Designed for Outdoor Living

Memorial Day marks the official start of life outdoors – another form of ”rapture” for many, including me – so here are a few patio furniture suggestions, prompted in part by my friend industrial designer Eric Pfeiffer of Pfeiffer Lab, who has just debuted an outdoor version of his famous bent plywood Mag Table. It’s the Metal Mag 3, made of steel in a brilliant orange and produced in collaboration with Offi & Company and Loll Design. With his steel Fire Ring that doubles as a coffee table with a resin-based top when not burning wood  – also produced in collaboration with Loll Designs and  also new — the outdoor room is definitely warming up. Other designs that caught my eye after a quick Web search include the elegant Valencia Teak Chair from Viva Terra, which is inspired by Mies van der Rohe’s famous Barcelona Chair (the name is clever, referring to another Spanish coastal city). Using wood that’s sustainably grown and harvested, the chair deconstructs to fold flat for storage. For the recycler who can’t stop dribbling — wait for it — what about this coffee table from Uncommon Goods that uses part of a gym floor for its top. Worth a free throw at least! If you are a do-it-yourselfer, why not bring back the classic picnic table-and-bench idea using reclaimed wood painted white to give a fresh contemporary twist (this example designed and built by Houseplans’ own Stephen Williamson). Paired with white-painted antique metal chairs the effect is summery and sophisticated. Classics are definitely in this year — at ICFF in New York last week (the International Contemporary Furniture Fair) the Editors’ Award in the Outdoor Furniture category went to an Eames outdoor furniture design from 1958 — for the Miller house in Columbus, Indiana by architect Eero Saarinen – retooled with new materials for today (image courtesy theoutdoorstylist.com). The chair is produced by longtime Eames manufacturer Herman Miller. 

New Home Plans that Celebrate the Outdoors

The latest additions to the www.houseplans.com inventory include a range of designs that deftly incorporate outdoor living. Plan 484-5 is a small two- bedroom house organized around what’s called a “Chill Deck,” which is really the outdoor living room.

  Plan 519-1(below) is a small cabin designed for a sloping site and

includes a view deck off the living area and kitchen. 

Similarly the focal point for Plan 449-2 is a seductive pool patio, complete with waterfalls. Time for a dip!

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Posted in Architectural Innovation, Cabins, contemporary home design, Design Ideas and Inspiration, Furniture, Home Products, House plans, layouts, modern architecture, Modern Houses, Outdoor Living, Patio Living, Porches, Recycled products, Uncategorized

Home Style Gift Ideas

Posted on November 24, 2010 | Leave a comment

An Early Holiday Hunt, from Coasters to Chicken Coops

The news that some stores are opening at 3:00 am on the day after Thanksgiving has made me a little panicky, so here are some early and  random design-oriented gift suggestions. I’m a big fan of personalized gifts, like luggage tags that incorporate your own imagery (a faster way to distinguish one black bag from another on the carousel)…they feed my obsession with stones, thanks to the easy upload process on Shutterfly:

Coasters are another item that shows off your eye for design. Here’s what I did with Houseplans.com Chief of Design Nick Lee’s elevations for the house we’re building in Sonoma (Ranch House Plan 508-1):

(This view is from my Shutterfly project page.) A nice way to dream about the house you’re hoping to build as you sip that holiday cocktail.

Or to continue the agricultural theme of the house, how about a prefab chicken coop. The subject seems to be gaining in popularity at the moment, in any case. I like this A-frame example, which I found on renest.com, an interesting shopping guide to green materials:

Designed to house two chickens, the simple clarity of the structure is appealing. It’s the Eco Coop by Rentachook and uses primarily recycled materials. Friends just remodeled their kitchen and that made me look for an appropriate “warming” present so at Placewares I found Marimekko oven mits. One with a floral pattern:

The other more abstract:

Speaking of house presents, consider an ornament, like this globe. It seems an obvious idea to dangle the world on a string but this version seems particularly elegant:

And why not give your friends and relatives a planet anyway! This example is one of several from the shop at the extraordinary Museum of New Mexico Foundation. I also tend to check the offerings at Terrestra and this time I found an eye-catching, wave-like wine rack.

Something to help me surf the holiday season, perhaps…

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Posted in Decorating Ideas, Design Ideas and Inspiration, Green Design, holiday gift ideas, Home Products, House plans, layouts, Recycled products

Eco Building Resources

Posted on August 6, 2010 | 1 Comment

Exploring Greenland

I just toured a new showroom in San Francisco that is a one stop shop for earth-friendly flooring, cabinetry, counters, fixtures, paints, and more. It’s called Ecohaus and has outlets in Seattle and Portland as well as SF. Here are some of the items that caught my eye. I have mentioned one or two of these products in previous posts but having them all in once place makes shopping so much easier…

Marmoleum (made from linseed oil, a natural ingredient) is a type of linoleum and though not a new material now offers a wide range of

colors and patterns. The image above shows the huge array of glue-down sheets. Marmoleum also offers click-together planks for easy installation.

An expanding variety of recycled woods are now available, through a company called Eco Timber.


Their newest introduction is  FSC-certified Strand Woven Poplar

with its attractive multi-toned, vividly figured grain. It’s made from post-industrial furniture scraps!

Eco-friendly counter options are multiplying. Squak Mountain Stone offers this seductive warm gray.

It’s a composite of recycled paper, recycled glass, and low-carbon cement and comes in full and half slabs that are 1 3/8 inches thick. It has the smooth cool touch of burnished concrete.

Low-flow and dual-flush toilets are now routine, but here’s a water saving example that has also been shown at recent Home Builder shows. It uses the run-off from the sink to fill the toilet tank.

It’s from a company called Caroma, which also offers  a variety of other bathroom sinks.

Using a table as a kitchen island is a simple strong idea and this table would fill the bill for me nicely.

It’s handsome enough for an elegant meal and durable enough to use as a work surface. Made by Windfall Lumber, it’s composed of wood from shipping pallets and crates.

No- and low-VOC paints are important finishing touches and among the choices are lime based paints by Olivetti, which have a rich texture.

Something to consider for an accent wall like the one above (courtesy Ecohaus). See how the texture adds depth and richness to the hue.

New Plans to Explore

These green materials would be especially suitable for some of our latest exclusive plans, like the Vermont Simple House 1 (plan 500-1) by architect Robert Swinburne.

Bob, who started out as a carpenter before becoming an architect, is interested in creating super simple, flexible, adaptable modern and traditional designs that can be affordably constructed.

The  layout is very efficient, with a good-sized front porch.

Upstairs are three bedrooms.

He says: “My designs are green without gimmicks other than some degree of passive solar and Passive house insulation.” Which reminds me of one of my nervous tics, I mean, mantras: good design is green all by itself.


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Posted in Appliances and Fixtures, Building Materials, Furniture, House plans, layouts, Kitchen and Bath, Plan Collections, Recycled products, Uncategorized

Architectural Salvage

Posted on July 8, 2010 | 4 Comments

Find Your Inner Robber Baron

A Sunset magazine headline of some years back — Recycle, Restore, Reuse — is more relevant than ever in today’s economy. So, where can you find affordable but distinctive home products and building materials

like this Talaveras pottery sink for $50?  The answer is: at architectural salvage yards like Habitat for Humanity’s ReStores across the US and Canada. ReStore is a home improvement outlet that sells donated, new, used, and surplus goods to the public at greatly reduced prices.

Profits  support the local Habitat for Humanity, a network of community volunteers who build modest affordable homes with the families who will live in them. Browser beware, however: you’ll need to visit an outlet regularly to catch the most popular items — that sink came in to the Sonoma County, California Restore outlet (entrance pictured above) just after I arrived and had sold before I left!

These outlets and other salvage yards are where you can make like the insatiable artifact collector and San Simeon Castle builder William Randolph Hearst but without his billionaire budget. (Remember: a lot of the doors, paneling, and even ceilings in Hearst Castle came from Spanish monasteries and French chateaux — in those days Europe was the ultimate salvage yard for some people.) In addition to the sink shown above, I found

solid core paneled doors for $100, and a granite-topped

corner bar cabinet for $850.

If you don’t see what you want at a ReStore, google “architectural salvage” or check with your local building department to find recycle outlets in your area.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, for example,   Ohmega Salvage Yard now has some unusual Gothic-style oak panels saved from the old Carnelian Room

Restaurant on the 52nd  floor of the Bank of America building in San Francisco. Historic Houseparts in Rochester, New York boasts a large inventory of vintage plumbing and bathroom fixtures

and would be a good place to look for early twentieth century porcelain sink spigots. At Architectural Artifacts in Chicago you’ll find items like these Art Nouveau interior doors.

A Builder’s Recycle Sourcing Tips

Our in-house contractor expert Brian Garrison has some good advice for the home product hunter-gatherer:

On Older Windows  and Doors: “I would not recommend recycling doors and windows for the exterior because of the heat loss and gain. Older building materials and practices may not be worth the upfront savings. ”

On Appliances and Fixtures: “Suppliers often finds themselves with opened boxes or damaged/imperfect products and these can be great buys. As long as the imperfections cannot be seen or do not take away from the beauty or function of the product there is no problem with using them in your new home.”

Thanks Brian — and Mr. Hearst — for showing us how to shop the recycle market.

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Posted in Appliances and Fixtures, architectural history, Building Materials, Cabinetry, Green Design, Home Products, Recycled products, Uncategorized

News from ICFF 2010

Posted on May 21, 2010 | Leave a comment

New Furnishing and Lighting Products

Our fearless Manhattan correspondent,  former New York Times Home Section editor Michael Cannell, filed this report on the latest design trends.

“Furniture fanatics filled the streets of New York last week as the city hosted the annual designapalooza known as the International Contemporary Furniture Fair. ICFF, as it’s commonly called, is this country’s biggest design exposition, mixing the best new American lighting, furniture, and accessories with introductions from big-name European outfits.

(The view above is of the Spanish pavilion, with blue “Agatha pendant” by Luis Eslava Studio.) The mood was surprisingly buoyant this year with an emphasis on the eco-conscious and a vibrant mix of colors. Here are some of the most noteworthy introductions:

Intricate Room Divider

Everybody loves big open loft spaces, but there may be times when you want to separate a living area from, say, a home office or media center. For this purpose the Dutch-American couple Mike and Maaike created Swarm, a playfully chaotic screen made of strips of wood connected with aluminum links.

Swarm is a porous divider, with plenty of room for light to pass through.

Colors include: natural, black, white, yellow, green (81” high; 38” wide): $1,425 (the two images above courtesy Homedecorg.com).

Woven Light

Timothy Liles is a New Hampshire designer who puts a contemporary twist on regional crafts. His new collection, called “New New England,” includes Sweetser,

a lamp with solid ash legs and a woven shade made in collaboration with New Hampshire basket weavers. The cord is covered in red textile. (52” high; 16” in diameter): $375.

Ancient Perch Updated

Tatit is a pair of ergonomic stools based on the bathing traditions of Finland and Japan, but it could be used anywhere.

Designed by the Finnish architect Toni Kauppila, Tatit is made of lightweight laminated pine from a Scandinavian forestry firm known for sustainable practices. Tatit will be available this summer from the Finnish Design Shop. (17.7” and 9” high, respectively): Price to be determined.

A Classic In Plastic

In 1944 Emeco began making a basic aluminum chair for use on U.S. warships. The Navy chair and its variations have surged in popularity in recent years. This spring Emeco and Coca-Cola introduced the 111 Navy Chair, a version made from 111 plastic soda bottles.

Emeco estimates that more than 3 million plastic bottles will be recycled annually for the production of the chairs.

The 111 Chair will be available in June in six colors: Coca-Cola Red, Snow, Flint, Grass, Persimmon and Charcoal (34” high; 15.5” wide; 19.5” deep): $230.

Ambient Origami

One of the more attention-grabbing items at this year’s ICFF came from the Spanish designer Ray Power who created a table lamp (it can also be used as a sconce) called Air MP out of a single sheet of twisted plywood veneer.

Available in seven colors: American white wood, Cherry, Beech, Yellow, Orange, Red, Green, Grey (13.3” high; 9.4” in diameter): $365.

Recycled Seating

Loll Design is known for outdoor furniture made from recycled HDPE, a plastic resin used in detergent bottles, margarine tubs and other packaging. Loll expanded its collection this year with the addition of Coco, a modern lounge chair with contoured slats.

Each chair is made from 184 recycled milk jugs. Available in six colors: black, white, apple, chocolate, leaf and sky (29” high; 21”wide): $350

Trees Not Required

Hammy is a hammock by a group of young designers who call themselves Plywood Office. It can be used indoors or out.

Materials: powder-coated steel, vinyl mesh and cypress wood. (40” high; 8’6” long; 36” high): $1850.

Beautiful Snarl

The artful tangle is one of the more conspicuous design trends of the moment, particularly in lighting design. Rachel O’Neill, a designer from Northern Ireland,

fashioned Polka from strips of Velcro woven around an aluminum frame. (23.5” high; 15.75” in diameter): Price to be determined.

Large-Scale Prints

Trove is a wallpaper studio with an emphasis on photographic imagery used in unusual formats.

This year the company introduced Fuoco, an oversized black and white image based on a historic photograph of the interior of the Venice opera house. (153” high; 67” wide): $13 per square foot.

Reissued For Summer

Richard Schulz, who his best known for his work with Knoll in the 1950s, designed the Fresh Air outdoor furniture collection in the 1980s, but it was never produced.

Available for the first time this spring, it is made of powder-coated aluminum. Available in sixteen colors. (34” high; 27” wide; 24” deep): Price to be determined.”

Thanks for keeping us current, Mike!

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Posted in Appliances and Fixtures, Furniture, Green Design, Home Products, Lighting, Recycled products, Uncategorized