The Sunday Seattle Times includes Pacific NW feature stories which this Seattle interior designer never misses. The story within the story, “On Whidbey, a unified home from multiple recycled parts”, weaves the green design of an architect son and garden designer mother. The resulting design is clever, resourceful and a feast for a designer’s eyes.

photo Benjamin Benschneider

According to Valerie Easton, Fran Abel can accommodate holiday feasts in her little house because the main living quarter opens up wide at one end to expand out into the landscape. The round “vaults,” or depressions in the concrete floor, hold the supports for the dining room table, which when fully assembled extends 36 feet, the entire length of the house and patio.

Though this home is small by most standards, 860 square feet, the innovative design provides multi-purpose use for each of the three rooms.  From Easton, “Every space is multipurpose; the kitchen, dining and living rooms share a single space. The bedroom converts to a yoga room when the Murphy bed is folded into the wall, and its hallway is lined with books. The “barn” houses a workshop, guest room/study, laundry and plenty of storage for bikes and boats.”

photo courtesy Seattle Times

Look carefully at the metal kitchen cabinets from Sears which are intended to store tools. This story and all the images are a good read and will have you reconsidering ‘discards’.

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The dark is upon us… at least from the window of this expert Seattle interior design.  This translates to increased electrical use and utility savings.  I would like to share these tips from Lutron about the benefits of dimming. 

• Dim a light to 50% and you’ll cut the electricity used by about 40%.
• Lighting accounts for nearly 20% of the average home’s electricity bill, so dimming makes an impact.

photo courtesy sparksdirect.com

Click here to see ten energy saving solutions from Lutron.

Installing one Lutron dimmer in every home in the U.S. in place of a standard light switch would:

• Save $230 million in electricity per year

• Reduce CO2 by 4.3 billion pounds per year

• Equal taking 370,000 cars off the road

Dimming your lights 25% saves 20% in energy. And, the more you dim, the more you save. A 1,500-hour incandescent bulb will last nearly tenyears when dimmed 33% and used 3 hours per day. That’s longer than the average American keeps a home.

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Recently my interior design eyes spotted Tabrasa and I wrote about it….No surprise that this company continues to receive raves most recently at HD Boutique. Tabrasa garnered a Best of Boutique award at the Hospitality Design conference.

Available in white as well as four new neutral colors, tabrasa^TM complements any interior design while transforming working environments into collaborative spaces – increasing functionality, and evoking creativity and impromptu teamwork. It is a more functional and operationally superior alternative to traditional white boards and dry-erase wallcoverings, as it: Learn more here.

Aesthetics & Style

tabrasa^TM can create various shapes for dry-erase writing surfaces including: a floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall writing surface; a strip in a hallway or around an entire room; a rectangle or variety of shapes scattered across a large wall; or a design element placed over a colored surface. No other dry-erase surface offers the aesthetic options of tabrasa.^TM  

Environmental Sustainability

Tabrasa has the lowest environmental footprint of any dry-erase product.

• No wood, steel, aluminum, vinyl or resin typically used with other dry-erase products-just paint.
• It doesn’t require the baking or curing process that other dry-erase products use. We use less material and fuel to ship since our box is small weighs far less than a similarly sized whiteboard.
• You simply paint over tabrasa^TM when you’re done with it. We’re happy to not contribute to the millions of pounds of whiteboard materials being dumped in landfills every year.
• tabrasa^TM conforms to all U.S. EPA regulations (including California) and is formaldehyde-free and, once dry, produces no off-gassing.

Once a month, I meet with Seattle interior designers around the topic ‘green design’.  Since my practice is residential I read about trends and products of interest to my clients. For readers of my weekly enewsletter, I include green resources and tips. When I read an article about new products featuring design elements that embrace the total of green principles I decided to share the information. My readers are interested in furnishings for children and teens so this example serves as a double score.:-D

The mainstream conversation about sustainability emphasizes the traditional values of longevity and durability in the field of eco-products.  Trend expert Eva Barth-Gillhaus from Meerbusch in North Rhine-Westphalia believes the greater attention being paid to sustainability has already changed people’s perceptions.

Sustainable furniture for children implies it must also be flexible enough to adapt to a child’s needs as they grow older.  A perfect example is the ‘Growing Table’ by designer Olaf Schroeder.  Both table and chair are suitable for toddlers and can be made gradually taller in increments of 10 centimetres by inserting the extra leg elements available. “This extends the lifecycle of the product by up to eight or ten years,” Schroeder says. 

Growing Table for toddler

Growing Table preteen

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Seattle interior design embraces great design that creates a true, living reflection of the people who live in the space – and that’s about as ‘universal’ as it gets according to Janice Anne Costa.

Not long ago  kitchens revolved around a single work triangle, where Mom cooked meals for her husband and family. But  kitchens grew larger, and the work triangle evolved to kitchen “work zones.” Flexible  refrigeration replaced large, boxy refrigerators, and multiple, flexibly designed appliances became the norm.  See example:

Universal Design by Lora Creswick

In a similar vein, yesterday’s baths were all about  super-size.  Enter jetted tubs large enough to go swimming in and super showers with extravagant features using large amounts of water.

Consider the greening of the kitchen and bath. Efficiencies of space and energy are the rage and water conservation inspires smaller fixtures, re-designed to provide the full-sensory water experience,  using less water.

Looking over the changes in the kitchen and bath industry, one thing is clear: Design is fluid. Indeed, the creative nature of the field almost demands that today’s trends will be ever-changing and evolving, as consumers and design professionals continue to pursue “the next big thing.” Janice Anne Costa

So what is the “next big thing?” Bet on Universal Design as the “green” of the future.

Curbless Shower

This trend gained visibility in the products on display at this year’s K/BIS, where beautiful, safe and accessible tub and shower options were seen in abundance. Personalized design is finally coming into its own. As Mick De Giulio explains, “People are an amalgam of so many different elements: culture and nationality, family history and cooking habits”.