Eco Furnishings Found Locally at Crate & Barrel

After renovating a house recently with all environmentally friendly features, it was now time to look at furnishings. Of course, I wanted to go eco friendly. Home furnishings can be toxic and negatively impact your indoor air quality. I learned this first hand last year.

I made the incredibly stupid decision to purchase some bedroom furniture from a major national furniture chain. A few hours after it arrived, I noticed a heavy "new car/furniture" type of scent in the room. I figured it was just new and needed some time to air out. After a day, the odor was still there. After 4 days, the odor was still there. After 10 days straight with the windows opened, the odor DID NOT dissipate AT ALL! I was having visions of those poor people in New Orleans in their FEMA trailers! With the windows shut, I could only tolerate 5 minutes in the room before a headache would set in. I knew I had to take action and removed the furniture immediately.

My guess is that the wood frame and drawers were constructed with plywood that contained formaldehyde and heaven knows what else. In other types of furnishings, upholstery can be treated with flame retardant chemicals (and stain resistant chems too) that off gas into your home, and your family get the breathe it in! So going eco friendly makes a lot of sense for a lot of reasons.

The next challenge is to find these types of furnishings, which are few and far between. Luckily, I stumbled onto a national chain that offers eco friendly furnishings and housewares, as a part of their Eco Initiaves Program - Crate & Barrel. They carry everything from Bamboo Dining Tables, to chairs with Soy foam cushioning, to recycled glass dinnerware. Some of the pics on this post are from their line. I was lucky enough to get some of these lovely pieces for our Green House and everyone loved them, especially me.

For more eco furnishings, take a look at:
Fernwalla
Cisco Brothers