So, a little known fact about people who don’t have kids is that we don’t care about nurseries. We avoid ToysRUs, we send Pottery Barn Kids catalogs straight to the recycling bin and we think finding poop on an upholstered chair in the living room on Christmas morning is disgusting (true story). So it takes an extra special, truly bedazzling nursery for us to give it a second look, and a total superstar for us to actually like it. I present this nursery by Insidesign that I just spied over at Remodelista. OF COURSE it is Dutch. It almost makes me believe I could live with all the poop:

If this got you in the mood to shop for modern nursery goods, this is what Design Public has for your hip baby.

photo via Remodelista, though I think they may have found it via desiretoinspire

Maybe it’s the fact that in my professional life vibrant color and pattern are my signature style at Petunia Pickle Bottom that make my personal life at home a monochromatic world.  My rule of thumb when putting together a room usually begins with one object.  I am a fan of flea markets or something with a little history.  So when I begin to style a room, it is usually a unique found object that sparks my imagination.

Our home was built in the 1920’s and still has a considerable amount of the original details.  Our family room is where we like to hang out by the fireplace, read books to the kids on our comfy couches, take a nap or set up train tracks to circumnavigate the room.  When I first saw this room, I was struck by the 8’ window and high exposed beam ceiling. It was light and bright so I chose colors that would naturally illuminate.

The focal point I designed around was the natural wood Roost buck head flanked by archival school charts (lobster and bird) that stem from my father’s days as a college biology professor. My recent obsession with mushrooms covers the fireplace mantle.

Friends joke our kids will have nightmares from the oversized Chinese ceremonial mask that hangs in our dining room. Found at an antique store in historic downtown Ventura, she’s become part of the family. We think it was used in the movies or carried in a Chinese parade.

The red lips of the mask were the perfect color to pair the walls, a vintage red wood telephone booth door filled with glass, and our custom table crafted by my husband.

My 3-year-old son Sutton’s room was recently converted to a “big boy” bedroom.  Years ago I found a stunning oversized school map of the United States (chalk printed so you can write on it) that I knew would be perfect for a child’s bedroom. We held onto over the years and it served as the perfect centerpiece for the “Traveler’s odyssey” theme for my son’s room.

Complete with a flying ship, globes, suitcase, guitar, army blanket, old books, and oriental rug, we dream of all the far-off places we will go together.

My youngest son Miller’s room began when I fell in love with the Cole & Son’s wallpaper “Trees.”

I went with a grey palette and used yellow as the pop color, archival sketches of birds, and a big comfy chair for books and cuddles.

I often retreat to this room when I need a moment to breathe; life with two boys is very loud and rambunctious. Miller loves the serenity of this room, especially since our days are jam-packed with play dates and outdoor activities.

Because we live in California we get to enjoy the outdoors. The patio off our master bedroom is a Moroccan-inspired retreat complete with the best (in my humble opinion) umbrella Anthropologie has ever offered.

The patio has a quaint sitting area and oversized hammock the whole family can cuddle on. I love the way all the bright whites in varying textures play off the sun.

Thanks, DeNai! If you ever need a housesitter, let me know. Ha! You can see all of the Petunia Pickle Bottom pieces on DP.

I think Niecy Nash is hilarious. Thus, I find myself getting sucked into the show she hosts, Clean House, all the time. This week they featured a couple who wanted a green nursery for their baby. After some soul-searching, the mother-to-be finally gave in and sold the nursery furniture at the garage sale in exchange for green nursery furniture by Oeuf. In these days of green-washing, I wanted to let you know what makes Oeuf furniture green. I will use the Oeuf Classic Crib to show you the considerations a designer takes into account when manufacturing an eco-friendly piece of furniture:

First of all, the crib can be transformed into a toddler bed with an additional kit. It’s able to transform to meet lifestyle needs and changes, thus making it a product you can use longer and in different ways. Oeuf furniture is designed to be used after a nursery is no longer necessary:

Second, The birch used in the base is from certified sustainable forests.

Third, the sides, footboard and headboard are all cut from single sheets of wood panel which is eco-friendly MDF made of recovered wood fibers – to eliminate the hazard of loosening joints.

Fourth, the lacquer used on the finished products is, of course, lead-free, non-toxic, and completely inert.In addition to being eco-friendly, non-toxic lacquer is what you want to have if your youngster decides to try to chomp his/her way out of the crib bars!

To check out the entire Oeuf line, click here.

If you have completed an eco-friendly home project, please leave a comment and tell us about it!

top two photos from the style network

]]> http://blog.designpublic.com/2008/09/26/clean-house-a-green-nursery/feed/ 2 http://blog.designpublic.com/2008/09/19/in-case-you-missed-it-around-the-web-this-week-5/ http://blog.designpublic.com/2008/09/19/in-case-you-missed-it-around-the-web-this-week-5/#comments Fri, 19 Sep 2008 09:01:55 +0000 Becky http://blog.designpublic.com/?p=3677

Thanks to Elements of Style for this post about how to live a Hollywood Regency dream by renting from Room Service.

Oh My God! THE LIZA ROOM TAKES THE CAKE! If you missed SF20, you can lament your loss by perusing these fabulous images Leah posted at More Ways to Waste Time.

Oh My God Part II: Oh Patricia Gray, thank you for this. At first I thought it was a Chelsea Lately sketch, but it really is Sarah Palin’s office

Home Rejuvenation’s posts blow my mind all the time. I’m giddy over the The Next Generation House by Sou Fujimoto Architects.

I’m just nuts about Mrs. Blandings. I don’t know how I missed this charming Kansas City-based blogger’s writing for so long.

I don’t know how it took me ten days to find fellow, the new online design magazine from decor fellow blogger James Saavedra. Thanks to Habitually Chic for the tipoff.

Check out the list of the most inspiring design books of all time from O At Home magazine. I’m such a dork; I circled the ones I already have, which added up to ten. I was really excited to see Luis Barragan, Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown and J.B. Jackson included on the list, but was disappointed that landscape architecture was not represented more.

Bummer! The Farnsworth House, in spite of the plinth it sits on above the ground, is majorly flooded. To make a donation towards repairs, click here. (via AT: Chicago).

Design Bloggers in Print! The New York Times did a huge feature on design bloggers yesterday, and included some of my favorites, like Jennifer Dwyer from The Peak of Chic. Congratulations! Hey, you know what’s weird? Wordpress has the word “bloggers” underlined right now like it’s not a word. It has Wordpress underlined as well. What’s up with that?

• photo from Room Service via Elements of Style

• photo by Leah Hennen at More Ways to Waste Time

• photo from The Anchorage Daily News (Landov) via The New York Times, via Patricia Gray Interior Design

• photo by (I think) Sou Fujimoto Architects, via Home Rejuvenation

• image from Mrs. Blandings

• image from fellow by James Saavedra

• image from amazon.com

• image from landmarks.org

We had a special visit from Ashley of DwellStudio on Monday…boy is it a treat when our designer friends stop by! Something spreads through the air and we all get even more excited about the products on our site…a fervor-esque excitement some might say. Ashley gave us the lowdown on all of the new 2009 DwellStudio Baby and DwellStudio Home products which James launched on our site last week…we learned a TON about the new pieces but there are a few highlights I’m just itching to share:

1.) The new geometry print is amazing. It is a classic pattern that totally has a lasting quality to it (good for adults and kids and babies alike). Their color choices are spot on and the shapes are as James said, “Reminiscent of an Alexander Calder mobile.” The designs were originally hand drawn giving the pieces a real human aesthetic.

2.) The bookshelves and animal banks are certainly not simple mass produced bookshelves/banks, no, no! Each piece is hand carved and hand lacquered and it takes 100 days for the artists to complete a project. The layers and layers of lacquer make the finish a truly unique and quality piece. Yes, I am in love.

3.) I know I tweeted about this on Monday, but the storage bins are HUGE! They are so large I contemplated trying to curl myself into one…unfortunately, I didn’t do it but I might get one just to try. Ha! These can be used for so many purposes…toys, laundry, a towel holder for a bathroom, etc. If you are detail obsessed like us you’ll notice that the inside seams are completely taped so there are no raw edges. Good show DwellStudio, good show.

4.) Finally, and this really doesn’t cover the half of what we talked about (i.e. the rugs, the new dragonfly print, the bath mats, the toddler backpacks, the hooded towels, the fun kit, etc)…I learned that all of the kids and babies photographed in their new 2009 collection are friends or family. For example, this little tyke belongs to Molly of DwellStudio. What does this mean? Well, 1.) The parents are incredibly lucky to have such adorable offspring and 2.) These are real parents who work and use and create the DwellStudio Baby products. Their pieces are truly functional and have a tested purpose (beyond looking as good as they do!). If you want to meet another DwellStudio parent (as well as one of the founders!) check out this article recently printed in The New York Times.

Thanks, Ashley and DwellStudio. Please come by again soon…you know where we work!

Please tell us a bit about the path that led you into founding Q Collection. What was the turning point that lead to Q Collection Junior?

Back in 1999, Anthony and I (the co-founders) were looking around for home furnishings for my apartment in lower Manhattan. Anthony was an interior designer and I was immersed in the world of environmental management. We asked ourselves if we could find items that had the quality and design Anthony was used to working with while also having the sustainable features I sought. We failed to find anything already in existence. If we wanted truly green things, we had to give up on quality and design. If we wanted quality and design, we had to give up on sustainability. That planted the seed. What about all the folks, like us, who want both – high quality and fresh design with the healthiest, most environmentally friendly materials?

We made some prototypes and opened a temporary showroom in 2003. There was far less understanding and awareness around sustainability and green design than there is today. Many (including some fairly high profile folks) thought we were naive to try to marry these two areas…home furnishings design & sustainability. We felt strongly at the time, and feel even more strongly today, that it was naive not to. Knowing what we know now, we would close our doors before we put a product on the market that isn’t the healthiest, most sustainable product possible. It is the only way we know how to design.

As far as the transition into Q Collection Junior: When you design with human health and the environment at the core of your business, you quickly start to see the world around you differently. The children’s market, more than any other, was screaming for Q Collection Junior. These were the few things we knew:

o Indoor air quality is 3x worse than outdoor air quality.
o Infants and children are most vulnerable to toxic substances in the home. (www.qcollectionjunior.com for more information)
o Our children’s generation is facing an unprecedented rise in chronic disease and illness such as cancer, autism, asthma, birth defects, ADD / ADHD, and learning and developmental disabilities. The scientific community has linked many of these outcomes to unregulated toxic chemicals that surround us in our homes.

Meanwhile, everywhere we looked were furnishings loaded with chemicals that have no business being in your home let alone within feet of children. So, with the same lens we used to create Q Collection, we set out to create Q Collection Junior: combine design and quality construction with the healthiest, most environmentally-friendly materials available. We created something very special and it is particularly rewarding that it benefits kids.

I do admire your focus on superior air quality. Do your environmental standards ever limit or impact your visions in any way?

As you suggest, one of the areas of greatest focus for us is superior indoor air quality. In fact, we have the first (and only) cribs in the world certified by Greenguard for superior indoor air quality. We are incredibly proud of this. It was an arduous, trial-and-error process but remained a priority.

What makes our design process different is that sustainability is a focus from day one. We aren’t taking existing designs and materials and substituting in a few different materials here and there. Our process is holistic.

With the constraints of designing for superior indoor air quality, we had a vastly narrowed universe of materials to work with. For every one material we researched and approved there were probably 15 that didn’t make it. How does this affect our vision? I think our product line speaks for itself…fresh design and impeccable hand-crafted quality coupled with the healthiest, most environmentally-friendly materials available. The reality is that we thrive at designing with sustainability constraints and those constraints reinforce our unique vision.

The pricing for your pieces is really quite reasonable considering where the materials come from, where they are made, and what the final product offers the consumer. How important a role does affordability play in your designs?

Affordability was a key goal when we set out to design Q Collection Junior. We knew we couldn’t lose sight of this. But there were certainly challenges. For example, all of our furniture is hand-crafted in the USA. We had environmental and health concerns in producing overseas. Had we done so, our prices could have been lower but that tradeoff wasn’t worth it to us. In addition, our materials are the healthiest on the market and cost more than what other folks are using. All of that said, what good is designing the healthiest, most environmentally-friendly line of children’s furniture and bedding if it is out of reach for most folks?

You are considered the “Environmental Specialist” in your team, correct? With your experience and insight, where do you see the sustainable movement going next not only with regards to the design world but beyond?

That is correct that I am our specialist but everyone on our team is equally passionate about our commitment to this. That is no small question…but the simple reality is that the days of designing and living without considering human health and the environment are numbered. We no longer have that luxury. Our grandchildren will look at how we set our priorities and designed the things in our life with bewilderment. “What were they thinking! Or, were they even thinking at all!?”

Just around the corner is a day when with EVERY product comes on the market it will go without saying that it is made from 100% non-toxic, recycled materials, renewable energy and can be completely disassembled and recycled itself.

Any eco pet peeves?

Companies that brag about how they are “going green” when all they have done is pumped up the marketing and changed one or two things. It is happening too frequently right now.

I noticed that your 11 month old son is your “Senior Product Tester.” Has he had any constructive criticism for any pieces? Does he have a favorite piece?

Reeve has been product testing since his first weeks though I don’t think he knows it. He loves the Stella stackable cubes, opening and closing the doors, the bright colors. He also adores his crib (the original prototype for the Solare crib). When we first put him in it he ran around the edges, played with the salamander discs and reached up along the arch.

As for criticism, he is not a fan of having his diaper changed while lying down. He is pushing hard for us to create something where he can stand during all of this.

How about yourself? What is your favorite Q Collection Junior piece?

My favorite piece is the Solare crib. I love its clean lines and hand-crafted quality. We have one ourselves and I have given a few to our closest friends. I think it will quickly become a signature piece in the collection.

After all this talk, I almost forgot to ask: Why the name Q Collection? What does it stand for or what does it mean?

Q Collection derived from Quercus, the latin word for oak. We felt that a tree was a very appropriate symbol for quality, sustainability, beauty, etc. Quercus was always a word I loved from my grad school days. We shorted it to Q Collection as it is easier, more memorable, etc.

What is in the future for Q Collection Junior?

In terms of upcoming designs, we intend to grow with our first customers. As they outgrow their cribs and bedding, we will have toddler beds and toddler bedding waiting for them.

This is Dwell’s first licensing deal, and we hold the worldwide exclusive for a limited time.

Check out the complete collection here.

Lucky Jade Baby Blankets are spun from only the finest cashmere yarn, and the mini blankets are trimmed in silk satin. Basically, this is a gift you give when you want to send the very best, when you want to impress, or when you want an infant to learn luxury in the crib! If buying for your own little one, be warned; this is the blankie that will become a binkie; the one your child will cling to link Linus long after he or she is too big for it.

View the complete Lucky Jade line from Leslie Pitts.

There are two facts that, when you are preparing for a new baby, become painfully apparent. The most obvious is that this is something brand new. Not just new as in “Um, why did I trade my life that I’m perfectly happy with for a new one that I know absolutely nothing about?”, but also new as in a fresh start. It’s like you’re given this project completely from the beginning, and it’s up to you to make it as cool as possible.

The other fact is that all of a sudden you’ve got a reason to buy loads of new stuff. And sure, ostensibly it’s stuff for the baby, but really it’s stuff for you. And stuff for you should look like stuff you would want to have. Long after the baby shower it’s you that’s going to have to push that stroller around with the ugly plaid fabric, or carry that diaper bag covered in bunnies.

Before our daughter arrived we tried to take advantage of our fresh start and get things that were functional, appropriate for a child, and didn’t look ugly. But even as little as a year and a half ago we didn’t have many options. We had to get the crib in one place, the Blik wall decals another, the arm shell rocker in another – but eventually it all came together. Now the one room in my house that was most likely to look like it came from some country kitchen nightmare is my favorite.

So if ducks and bunnies and stenciled furniture is your thing, then you’ve already got lots of options. But if your tastes are a little different, then it might take a little more work, but fortunately there are a lot of options these days. Because as far as I can tell, babies don’t care either way what their furniture or the fabric in their car seat looks like. And hopefully if you surround them with good design, when they’re old enough to make their own choices they’ll make the right ones.

Read more Modern Day Dad.

I may or may not have a talent for home design and decorating, I’m really not sure. When faced with a room that needs that special something like oh, say, paint, I tend to freeze up and not know what I want and, therefore, don’t end up doing anything. I think it stems from growing up in a home with all white walls and linens; my father wouldn’t tolerate anything else. Fortunately, I live in an old house that is detailed enough to be interesting on its own and I don’t have to do a lot to it downstairs. Upstairs? Not quite as interesting. It needs a little more effort.

The bedrooms are upstairs and I feel like I can take a little more risk there, especially with the kids’ rooms. My daughter’s room has been the testing ground for my newfound “daring” decor moves. It’s been through a lot, but we have finally settled on bright, bright green walls with coordinating blue and purple accents (Hey, she’s 10, I would have killed for something like that when I was her age). This was no easy task to make it look right, since all the house trim is dark wood and you have to consider that with every color and furnishing you choose.

I was excited to do my son’s room, he’s my first boy and there was so much I wanted to do. I planned carefully, knowing that “boy” colors would be easier to incorporate when you consider the details of our old house. I used colors from a cowboy poster print in his room. It has denim blue, dark greens, khaki and dark reds, all great boy colors. I took my time choosing furnishings and accessories that looked great with the color scheme. We painted the walls a dark khaki and when we finally finished, we realized the one detail we didn’t consider: he’s colorblind. We had decorated primarily in the colors that give him trouble. But, he was thrilled. He exuberantly thanked us, saying, “I’ve always wanted an all-green room!”

Read more Busy Mom.