Pretty Little Green Things

Posts Tagged ‘Green design musings’

I have to admit, I’m always somewhat of a Grinch come Christmastime.  Don’t get me wrong, I love traditions, family, holidays and giving.  But Christmas has just become so overcommercialized and all about how much stuff you got (and you know how I feel about stuff).  There’s so much pressure to have the PERFECT holiday that people lose themselves and what’s really meaningful this season.  I had been going back and forth on whether to put together an eco-friendly holiday gift guide this year and have finally decided against it.  If you read last week’s post on Buy Nothing Christmas, you’ll probably understand why.

Now to be perfectly clear, before you all hate me for ruining the spirit of Christmas, I’m not saying presents and giving aren’t important at all – actually just the opposite.  Giving meaningful gifts to the most important people in your life is absolutely rewarding and a wonderful way to show how much you love them and understand them.  But why give those people a pile of mediocre gifts that will end up collecting dust (or *gasp* end up in a landfill!) when you can give them one perfect gift instead?  Over the next few weeks, I’ll be posting a few untraditional gift ideas to help spark your inspiration & creativity for a truly meaningful and rewarding holiday.  And keep your comments coming on how you’re going to make this year the best yet.  I’ll be including the best ones in some upcoming posts.

But lest you think this post is all me babbling on about gifts and the holidays, I won’t leave you hanging.  I’ve gathered a few of my favorite holiday decor photos to inspire your holiday spirit.  Enjoy!

Gorgeous pinecone Christmas tree via Something Green

And why not hang your pinecones from pretty ribbons rather than the traditional wreath.  Another gorgeous idea from Something Green.

These ridiculously cute twine snowmen were created by David Stark via Design Sponge.  Click here for the complete how-to.

Also from Design Sponge, I’m loving the simplicity of this wreath.

I love this wreath idea.  I never quite know what to do with all the holiday cards we get so I usually end up doing a similar concept above my mantle.  This one is from Amy at ABCD Design.

What holiday decor inspiration would be complete without Martha Stewart.  Here she takes magazine pages and repurposes them into chic Christmas trees spray painted gold.

Also from Martha Stewart, this wreath is made of Christmas lights and doilies.  I’m also thinking it could be a fun project to make with kids by making a bunch of hand cut snowflakes.

Our living room. Clean but not totally tidy yet.

As you may know, we’ve been deep into an apartment renovation.  Nothing structural, no walls were moved, just a lot of little projects that added up to one long dusty undertaking.  As we (dare I say it?) near completion, I’ve learned a few difficult lessons about managing a construction project and keeping it green.  So now that I can see the light on the other side of the tunnel, I thought I’d share the good, the bad and the ugly of eco-friendly (or really any) home construction project.  The photos that are interspersed throughout are the current (almost finished and a bit messy) state of my apartment.  Here goes…

Yes, the supplies are still out, just in case...

1.  Know thy contractor: I can’t stress how important it is to truly click with your contractor.  If they don’t share your vision, you’re going to be disappointed.  I thought I had this one down.  I mean, my contractor is an architect turned design-build guy and we used to work together at an architecture firm here in the city.  So stylistically, yes, we were totally on the same page.  I didn’t have to explain to him things like: I like symmetry or, all doors should match.  He got that.  But what we weren’t on the same page about was the green factor.  All right, all right, some of that was my fault.  I just couldn’t afford FSC certified crown molding wood that was going to get painted anyway.  I wish I could, but I’m just an overworked & underpaid designer.  But there were so many little things he could have done a bit greener.  For example, after trying so hard to select eco-friendly finishes myself, in the end my ceiling is painted with regular paint (not low-VOC) and the wallpaper was hung with regular adhesive (not non-toxic).  The best laid plans…blah blah blah.  But I’m the green girl and I failed in that respect.  Lesson one learned the hard way.  Make sure your complete vision is shared and understood by your contractor, not just some of it.

Isn't it beautiful? I think the kitchen is now my favorite room in the house.

2.  You get what you pay for: This was probably one of the hardest things for me to understand.  I’m such a perfectionist so I don’t really get it when other people aren’t the same way.  I mean, be proud of your craft and do it right!  The first contractor we interviewed was amazing.  If someone else had been footing the bill, I would have hired him in a heartbeat.  But his quote came in as almost four times the price of what we ended up paying.  Four times! So part of me thought, well this is New York City and everyone thinks you’re rich (which we are not) so they jack up the price.  And another part of me thought, “Well, hey, I’m an interior designer.  I should be able to communicate my vision and it will get done exactly as I imagined.”  So with both of those in mind, we went with the cheapest option.  Unfortunately the old adage is true, you DO get what you pay for.  Doors were installed upside down, things that should have been done right the first time had to be fixed and I’m still scraping paint spots off the floor.  Now, I’m not saying you need to spend a ton of money for good design, but if you’re looking for high quality detailed work, lesson two: beware of promises of low cost workers.

Another view of the kitchen.

3.  Stand up for what you want: Because if you don’t, your contractor (or their workers) will take the easiest way out.  This one probably goes back to lesson #2.  I’m a perfectionist and think everyone else should be too.  Well, they’re not.  So be VERY clear about what you want, how you want things finished, the overall quality level desired and the eco-friendly considerations.  Oh and I forgot to mention that my contractor was a push-over.  I’m an extremely nice person, almost to a fault.  I try to use kindness and reason to solve problems.  But if something goes wrong, you need to stand up for what you want and what you PAID for.  So lesson three learned: If you’re not going to yell at the sub-contractors to do things right, make sure you have a contractor who will.

We used to have nasty wood blinds here but I finally removed them. Now to find the perfect eco-friendly roman shade fabric...

4.  Green may be a best practice but it’s not common practice: Sustainability gets a lot of media attention nowadays.  There are some marvelous people out there creating innovative products that are less toxic, use less energy and reuse resources.  So you would think that in the construction industry, it would just be a matter of picking option B rather than the traditional route of option A.  Not true. All of the materials I selected were green in some way: eco-friendly wallpaper, recycled ceramic tiles, non-toxic countertop and low-VOC paint.  But do you know the content of the grout they used to install the tiles?  Or what the toxicity level of the wallpaper adhesive is?  I know I don’t.  I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that most contractors do not care about how green these base materials are.  They use them because they’re easier and cheaper and, well, that’s the way they’ve always done it..  So if you’re committed to doing a totally eco-friendly renovation, do your research and insist that your contractor find greener alternatives.  Because in the end, (lesson four) if you don’t specify that EVERYTHING must be eco-friendly, you’ll get the status quo.

Do you like the red shelf? It used to be a blond wood and I painted it. I'm loving the contrast.

5.  It’s never going to go the way you think…never: So guess what, I’m an interior designer (duh).  I manage construction projects.  So I should know that these things are never on time and on budget.  Well guess what, I work on really large projects with tons of people involved and don’t manage the day to day goings on of the contractors.  That’s what we have floor plans and project managers for.  In my contractor’s defense, we were totally on budget (and as I mentioned, he was the least expensive).  He even added a few small things for free and gave me credits for all the screw ups.  But what I thought would be two week long project, took more like five plus.  And it would have taken even longer if I hadn’t pushed for completion.  In fact, we spent all weekend touching up paint, cleaning and fixing a few things here and there that should have been finished long ago.  So my advice?  Lesson five – Think a certain length of time in your head and tell your contractor half to three quarters of that period.  That way you won’t go crazy when they’re not done on time.  And as for budget, have a slush fund for unexpected problems, because they’re going to happen.  I promise.

Our bedroom. I'm on the lookout for the perfect eco-friendly headboard.

The closets are a HUGE improvement to what we had before.

6.  You’re going to create a lot of trash, which is soooo not eco-friendly: Yes, you’re right, there are ways to recycle construction supplies.  But you’re going to create a lot of trash that isn’t so easy to reuse or get rid of in a responsible manner.  Dried plaster chunks, empty paint cans, old screws and pieces of drywall are not as easy to deal with as say, perfectly good pieces of wood.  Part of the problem for us was that everything happened so quickly – if I wasn’t paying attention, things would be thrown out instead of recycled without a second thought.  I feel awful about the bags and bags of things that were thrown away.  I’ve definitely increased our carbon footprint to a extremely large and sooty EEEE.  So how to avoid a massive trash heap?  Do your research and do it before the contractors get started.  If you find the places and the processes where these materials can be recycled, you’ll be in much better shape at the heat of the moment.  Just keep in mind that sorting through construction debris takes a lot of extra time, which equals more money if you want your contractor to do this.  But it’s worth it to keep Mother Earth happier.

We have tons of storage in our bathroom now and that corner behind the toilet doesn't look so weird anymore.

Another view of the hallway.

So those are my huge lessons learned from a dirty and overwhelming construction project.  I hope you take this to heart so you can go in with eyes wide open if you undertake something similar.  I’m happy that we decided to do this project in the first place and now that we’re at the tail end of things, our apartment is looking so much nicer and more like a grown up home.

Now that I’ve laid out my lessons learned, I would LOVE to hear your thoughts.  Have you had a similar experience?  What have you learned from your projects (big or small)?  Did I miss anything major?  You can comment here, or let’s get the conversation started on Twitter.  If you don’t follow me already, you can find me @PrettyLGreen.  Don’t be shy – we’ve all had projects (construction or not) that were big learning experiences.

Lights out!

It’s been a long weekend of patching, painting, fixing and cleaning around our construction zone (aka. apartment).  As you can probably guess, I’m exhausted right now.  I had a wonderfully long and reflective blog post planned for today, but in all the commotion of the day, I didn’t quite finish it up.  But fear not, I’ll have it up tomorrow, so check back.  Plus, I’ve been getting quite a few requests from you guys to see how our apartment is coming along, so I’ll include some progress pictures for you.

The really exciting part of today is that we finally laid our rugs back down.  I can’t even tell you how much more of a home it feels like now that those puppies are down.  Plus they’ve been a giant eyesore all rolled up and wrapped in black plastic bags.  Now if I could just figure out what to do with the leftover supplies and paint cans…

And one more photo for you.  This is a blurry picture of our kitchen.  I am LOVING all the white in our apartment.  We don’t get a lot of natural light, so switching to a whiter color palette has been key to making our small apartment feel just a bit bigger.

Okay, that’s all for today.  Stay tuned for more tomorrow…

And A Few Tips on Making Any Construction Project a Bit Greener

Today started off in a very green way – commuter train to work.  Okay, okay, you got me, I normally take public transportation (subway) or walk to work anyway, so this didn’t actually change my carbon footprint of the day.  But what did change my carbon footprint was the big load of material in my apartment being thrown away – the contractors ripped out our old baseboards, doors, door frames and kitchen counter.

As I’ve said before, by it’s very nature, construction can be a very un-green process.  You’re throwing things away and replacing them with something new.  But it doesn’t have to be that way.  I put together a list of a few things you can do to make your own construction projects a little bit greener, even if you’re not necessarily using eco-friendly products.

1.  Reuse and refinish everything you possibly can.  We decided to keep our current kitchen cabinets.  Do I love them?  No.  Are they still functional?  Absolutely!  So I’m going to sand, prime and paint them white to give them a brand new life.  Plus it’s a much less expensive option than throwing the old ones out and buying new.

2.  Find responsible ways of disposing of your old appliances.  We’re replacing our dishwasher.  It’s old, gross & doesn’t actually get our dishes very clean (not really a dish washer I suppose).  Plus the appliances of today are so much more energy efficient that it’s definitely worth thinking about replacing.  But what to do with the old dishwasher?  Don’t throw it away!  There are recycling centers throughout the US and I know New York has a ton.  Plus oftentimes, the retailer where you bought your new appliance will have a recycling program to cart your old one away.

3.  Recycle don’t throw away unusable construction materials.  With a little research, you can find a place to recycle just about everything.  Here’s a great site where you can actually create a listing for what you want to recycle.  Wood can be turned into particleboard, metals can be melted and used again and even drywall can by recycled into new drywall.

4.  Use low-VOC paints.  Okay, so you may actually consider this an eco-friendly product.  However with the array of paints available now, finding a low-VOC version isn’t any harder or more expensive than regular paint.  Home Depot, Lowes, Benjamin Moore…I could go on, but you get the point.  We’ll be using Benjamin Moore’s Aura paint for just about every surface.

I promise I’ll start showing you pictures of the construction progress soon.  Today was spent ripping the old door frames and baseboards off the wall.  Needless to say, not a very pretty sight.  When things get a bit more exciting, I’ll make sure to show you!

I have written about the virtues of living a slower life before, but I also think living a smaller life is just as important.  As my husband and I prepare to pack up our belongings to accommodate a few small construction projects in our apartment, I’ve realized how much stuff we actually own.  We live in a small one bedroom apartment in New York City, so unlike most Americans, we do not have a garage, a basement or a storage unit.  There’s only so much *stuff* we can actually gather.  Regardless, we’ve still managed to collect a lot of things we don’t actually need.  There is who knows what in our upper closets, textbooks from high school on our bookshelves, I won’t even admit to the number of pairs of shoes I own and our mail pile builds up to the sky.  Plus living in a small apartment means that one thing out of place instantly looks and feels like clutter.  This pre-construction packing up and organizing process has really made me reevaluate what’s truly important in our lives (and I’ll give you a hint, it’s not *stuff*)

In this consumer driven culture, more is seen as better.  We’re told to want a new iPod, the latest fall fashions, or to constantly update our homes in the latest color combination.  But I would rather love and treasure every single one of my belongings than chase the current, the trendy or the meaningless.  I would rather wait for the exact right thing than buy 10 things that never quite fit or that I don’t love.

This is how I feel sometimes!

So why am I tell you all this?  Because I am firmly avowing to be a better and smarter consumer.  I know it’s easy for me to say and much harder to actually do.  Trust me, I’m just as swayed by pretty new baubles as the next gal (did I tell you about my shoe collection?).  But I do think it’s important to rid our lives of meaningless clutter and focus on the things (and people) that truly matter.  I’m not swearing to get rid of everything in my apartment and start living an minimalist lifestyle (wouldn’t happen in a million years!).  What I am promising to do is: think about the effect of my buying habits, evaluate every new purchase I make (if I need it or not), look over what I currently have and purge what I don’t truly need (give it a new life!).  I challenge you to do the same.

Cleaning up!

So here’s how I’m going to do it:

Step one – get rid of all the paper.  We’re drowning in junk mail, old magazines and brochures I’ve picked up here and there.  We’ve already cancelled all the credit card offers and catalogs, so we’re part of the way there.

Step two – look at our possessions with different eyes.  Pretend like we don’t live here and evaluate what we really use and love.

Step three – donate, recycle and repurpose.  Donate everything we can to Goodwill, Salvation Army or Housing Works.  Recycle what we can’t donate.  And repurpose things we’d like to continue to use but don’t use now for whatever reason.

Step four – organize!  I’ll get into this step with you later, but there are tons of great products out there to help you get organized that are green.

Whoo hoo!  This is how I’ll feel after.

I’d love to hear you thoughts on decluttering your life.  Leave a comment below and tell me how you’re going to live a smaller life and get back to what’s really important.

Of course, I could never leave you without a few beautiful pictures.  These are my dream afters.  Clutter free, organized, chic and totally meaningful.  Enjoy!

To color code or not to color code books?  What do you think?

David Collin’s London apartment.  Gorgeous, no?

I can tell you my kitchen does NOT look like this.  A girl can dream, can’t she?

Okay maybe a bit too minimal to be realistic for me, but it’s gorgeous nonetheless

Here’s what I’ll do with my shoes.  Okay, okay, I still don’t have room for this, but I’ll add it to the wish list.

It seems like up until quite recently sustainable design had always been seen as just another category of interior design.  For some reason “green” needed to be a different classification than “residential,” “hospitality” or “commercial” design.  So now when I see designers and manufacturers consciously integrating sustainable design into their everyday practice, I get very excited.  People are starting to see green as just one piece of the design puzzle rather than its own separate puzzle, and I think this is such a wonderful step.  Our goal as interior designers is to enhance the living environment for inhabitants.  It is just as important to make a space beautiful as it is to make it healthy.  So with that, I’m very excited to tell you about this latest merge of sustainability and style: Project UDesign.

Here’s what it’s all about.  Century Furniture, BiOH® Polyols & Toray Ultrasuede challenged 15 Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) students to create an eco-friendly and stylish upholstered wing chair.  The participants were to use soy based BiOH® Polyols to replace a portion of the traditional foams.  (Traditional upholstery foams contain a lot of petroleum.  That’s right, oil.  Ewww!)  The chairs will be upholstered in Toray Ultrasuede’s new line of 100% recycled ultra-microfiber fabric called EcoDesign™.  I’ve scattered the four remaining designs throughout this post, so make sure to scroll down!

The winning chair will be debuted at High Point Furniture Market on October 20 and then added to Century Furniture’s line.  This is a huge deal for the students since they will get so much publicity and the winning chair will get royalties on sales.  The winner will be chosen by you, the people, so make sure you go online and vote for your favorite!

Here’s how to vote:

Right now there are currently 6 wing chair designs and 4 semi-finalists left.  You have until October 3 to vote for your favorite chair to be a finalist.  The three finalists will be announced on October 4 here.  Then you’ll have until October 19 to vote for the winner.

Here’s what the winning student will win:

1. A $1,000.00 cash prize from BiOH Polyols.

2. The addition of their winning eco-friendly wing chair design to Century Furniture’s permanent line-up, with production to begin this fall.

3. Royalties from Century Furniture on each chair that gets made and sold.

So make sure to go online and vote to support these amazing students!

I went back and forth on if I should tell you which one is my favorite (lest I sway you one way or another).  But I figured you’re all able make your mind all on your own All of the chair designs are totally unique, inspired and chic – it was definitely hard to pick just one.  But after much contemplation, I voted for the Alifair by Ryland Quillen.  I think it’s the perfect mix of traditional & modern design and I love that you can see through the “wing” (something totally lacking in traditional wing chairs!).  Plus I can imagine it working in so many different environments with just a change of upholstery.  And if it wins, maybe I’ll even add it to my living room!

There are many design bloggers talking about this project online, so if you’re interested in seeing which chair they liked, you can read these blog entries: The Studio Luxe from Marcia Zia-Priven, Interior Concepts from Wanda S. Horton, Frou La La from Maybelline Te and ABCD Design from Amy Beth Cupp Dragoo.

And again, make sure you go online and vote!

We’re about ready to start construction our apartment in a few short weeks.  By its very nature, construction can be a very un-green process.  Lots of waste, new materials, toxic adhesives and paints, energy use, well, you get the idea.  In spite of all this, we want to make our construction as eco-friendly as possible.  Our first goal?  Re-use as many existing materials as we can.  We’re only replacing what absolutely needs to be replaced and nothing else.  Next up?  Using eco-friendly materials where possible.  That means low-VOC paints, recycled tiles and quartz countertops (more on all that later).  And when we finally get around to buying furniture and home accessories, those will be as green as possible too.

I would have taken “before” pictures to show you, but right now our apartment is a DISASTER.  It’s tough to have the motivation to truly clean up when you know your house will be a construction site soon.  I’ll be documenting the whole experience so maybe when it’s all done, I’ll bring out the before pics so I can at least justify the mess with the beautiful afters.

Needing to get out of hot and crowded New York City for the Labor Day holiday weekend, my husband and I rented a cabin in a very isolated and very small town in Vermont.  Our aim was total relaxation in a beautiful and charming locale.  Instead, what we found was a completely different and slower way of life.

With no cell phone service, no TV and no Internet at our cabin we were forced to completely unplug from our normal activities.  I had grand visions of spending my day reading by the lake, but it didn’t dawn on me till we were actually there that no service meant no texting, no emails, and certainly no way to update the blog.  For my husband who is even more plugged in than I am, I was afraid he would quickly get bored without his beloved Blackberry or TV shows.

But instead of frantically driving hours to the nearest coffee shop with an Internet connection, what actually ended up happening is that we slowed down.  We found the local farmers market (amazing and inexpensive produce!), cooked every single meal at the cabin (no dining out), explored the area and spent lots of time talking or reading.  I really made me realize how much of our precious time we spend watching TV, updating our Facebook status or surfing the web.  And because we’ve wasted all that time, we rush between the really important things and create more stress for ourselves.

Now I’m not saying that you should forsake all TV or cancel your Twitter account (trust me, I’m a huge fan!), but I do think we should take the time every so often to unplug, spend some time with the people we love and reconnect to what’s truly important in our lives.

In honor of Labor Day and to savor these last few days of summer, I wanted to do a roundup of my favorite chic terraces and outdoor patios.  While outdoor spaces don’t necessarily translate into being eco-friendly, I think anything that pulls you outside into the open air and away from the AC is totally green.  And as you’ll see from these pictures, I do love greenery!  This was going to be a post of my top 10 favorites, but just couldn’t bear to get rid of that last one.  So without further ado, here are my top 11 favorite outdoor spaces.  Happy Labor Day weekend and I hope you enjoy your time off outside!

I haven’t ranked these in any certain order, but I have to say that Elie Saab’s terrace is one of my all time favorites.  I wouldn’t mind spending an entire day out here on this incredibly chic terrace!

This terrace was decorated by Roman and Williams for Ben Stiller and Christine Taylor’s Hollywood Hills home.

This is Annie Coggan’s porch as featured on Design Sponge.  I adore wrap around porches and there’s something about the elegant color scheme, simple layout and that one red chair that I really love.

I wrote about this porch a while ago when I showed you the Charity Works GreenHouse.  I still think it’s lovely.  Plus out of these 11 outdoor spaces, is the only one that’s technically eco-friendly.

This is from a riad in Marrakech.  I wish I knew which one because it’s gorgeous.  If anyone knows, email me!

I love the alternating stone pattern and walls of greenery on this outdoor patio.  These deep colors make it look so lush.  It was shown in the NY Times and is Rita Konig’s mother’s patio.

These next two aren’t necessarily terraces or patios, but any sort of hammock or swing is enough to make me want to sit outside with a good book, so I figure they qualify.  And maybe if you get this hammock going well enough, you’d be able to jump straight into the pool!

This swinging bench was a DIY project from Sweet Paul.  This just shows you that great outdoor space doesn’t have to come with a big price tag.

Here’s another Moroccan terrace  With their tradition of interior courtyards in the middle of a house or riad, I think the Moroccans just might have the chicest outdoor spaces around.

This terrace comes care of So Chic blog and is actually the outdoor area of Ralph’s, a restaurant set in the Paris store of Ralph Lauren.  So chic!

No post about outdoor spaces is complete without a romantic picture of Moroccan lanterns at night.  I think this reaffirms my belief that Moroccans have the chicest terraces.

It’s such a rare treat when I get to go to the Decoration & Design Building.  An entire building dedicated to interior design products is a pretty great thing in my book and I always find trips there so inspiring.  I went for wools and furs for a work project, but figured I could keep my eye open for eco-friendly offerings as well.  After walking through showrooms for most of the day, I have to say I was disappointed by the green options available to designers.  There were a few showrooms that got it (Pollack among them), but most just didn’t even have it on their radar.  It’s a shame.

Here are a few of the things I did find.  Again, mostly slim pickings in the green department.  However, there was a good linen selection, which is always an option.  The fabrics and wallpaper below are only sold to the trade, but you can usually buy thru a design center for a small fee.  These pictures were taken with my camera phone, so you’ll just have to use your imagination.

This is an embroidered unbleached linen from Mokum.  They have a great selection of fabrics, although most tend to be woven for commercial use (i.e. synthetic fibers and finishes).

Although you can’t really tell from this photo, this is a gorgeous linen from Creations Metaphores.  They have a great selection of natural fibers in modern colors and textures.

This is a cork wallpaper from Philip Jeffries.  Cork is an incredible eco-friendly material – rapidly renewable and very durable.  Not just for bulletin boards, it can be used for floors, lampshades, or as you see here, walls.  Plus Philip Jeffries is a wonderful company with lots of natural wallpaper options and a commitment to the environment.

I’ve been a fan of Pollack for quite some time – they’re a fabric company that truly gets it.  So much of their time goes into fabric development, which really comes out in their end product.  Their fabrics are well made and just beautiful.  And now with their Pure line, they have many green options.  I’ll be talking about them in a later post so stay tuned…

This is just one example of the many eco-friendly fabrics from Brentano, which they call Brentano green.  They have a great selection of really beautiful eco-fabrics so you’ll definitely be hearing more about them from me.  They’re sold through Pollack.  Way to go Brentano & Pollack!

This sheer from Knoll Luxe is colorful, bright and truly beautiful, so you’ll just have to use your imagination.  Knoll has been working with high-end fashion designers for some of their fabric lines, including this sheer designed by Rodarte.  It’s gorgeous, fashionable AND eco-friendly.  What’s not to love?

I try to be positive and upbeat in this blog – if I find a green product that’s not up to my standard, I just don’t feature it.  But I was so disappointed with this selection from Kravet that I couldn’t contain myself.  Kravet has always been a leader in the interior design industry, so I was excited when I heard they had an eco-friendly line of fabrics called Kravet Green.  Until I saw them.  These fabrics are boring, uninspired and just plain ugly.  C’mon Kravet is this the best you can do?