Ever been confronted with a not-so-pleasant smell in your home or other indoor environment, particularly the gym, the laundry room or the bathroom?  Here's a great little product that's all-natural to fix it in no time!

Ever Bamboo is made from bamboo charcoal, which is porous enough to address areas that hold onto moisture and humidity, like basements, pet beds, closets and lockers.  You can even use it instead of baking soda to soak up odors in your fridge or freezer.  It's made from a completely natural product, so you're not putting more chemicals into your environment or your body like with traditional deodorizors.  Plus, bamboo is a rapidly-renewable resource, so it's preserving other resources.  The moso bamboo plant can grow more than 2 feet in a single day!

The charcoal packs are long-lasting - up to a year - but here's a handy trick for recharging them:  put them out in the sun for a couple of hours and they release their stored odors and are ready to use again.  Wow, sun-power to the rescue!  Plus, the packs are completely recyclable once their useful life is up.

 

 

 

 
While doing some research for bedroom furniture, I came across this website (Abundant Earth), where they sell affordable sustainable furniture.

 

Just like the pieces above, they have furnishings that are made from healthy, renewable sustainably harvested woods, and are available in a variety of non-toxic, water-based finishes. It is worth checking it out.

I'm working on a longer blog post, but I saw these in the new CB2 catalog and thought they were interesting! They're made of a new material that is biodegradable, plus they're clean and modern looking.

EcoGen Bath Accessories 

October 5, 2009 is World Habitat Day, as announced by the non-profit organization Habitat for Humanity.  Why is this significant?  As Interior Designers, we would have fewer places to practice our art and business if there were no homes. 

Historically, the first recognized Interior Designer was American Elsie de Wolfe, who, in the late 1800s, rebelled against dark and fussy Victorian interiors.  Elsie created a cultural rage by painting French furniture and walls in bright white and allowing light to stream in through the windows.  She called herself "a rebel in an ugly world". 

I wonder what Elsie would think of the state of the world today: 1/3 of the U.S. population suffers from housing problems such as a high-cost burden, overcrowding, poor quality shelter and homelessness.  Across the globe, an average of one in every three city residents is living in inadequate housing with none, or few, basic services.