Clean the Air Inside Your Home with Green Plants

Posted on 19. Oct, 2010 by Sesshu Design in bamboo, Blog, eco-friendly design, eco-friendly interior design, environmentally friendly tips, green living tips, healthy homes, home decoration, indoor air quality, innovation, local companies, nontoxic cleaning, scottsdale interior design, zero-VOC

The air quality inside your home is one of the most important yet overlooked areas of green interior design.  The range of remedies can range from rather expensive options like replacing carpeting or serious HVAC systems for moving air, to one of the least costly and also aesthetically pleasing – adding live plants to every room.

A NASA study shows that live indoor plants do indeed help to create a healthier environment inside your home.  The study shows that

• indoor plants not only absorb CO2, they also release oxygen
• living plants scrub the air of pollutants commonly found indoors from our carpeting, paints, and cleaning products.

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are gases that pollute indoor air quality.  They can be found in many common household products, including paint, paint strippers, cleaning supplies, glues and adhesives. Breathing these compounds causes symptoms that range from allergic reactions to respiratory tract irritation to more serious conditions like asthma and cancer.

There are now paints, carpeting products, and indoor cleaners that have low or zero VOCs. Regardless, NASA found that a house plant for every 50 feet will help reduce VOCs and improve home air quality.

Even the act of living and breathing inside your home adds to the problems for healthy air because human respiration removes oxygen, and emits carbon dioxide.  If your home is extremely air-tight, over time the levels of CO2 can rise quite dramatically without some form of air transfer or cleaning.

Although all live plants take in CO2 and create oxygen, some are more efficient than others.  Many of the best are very common and easy to find.  The top indoor air scrubbing plants found by NASA are listed below (this plant list came from Zone10.com):

• Bamboo palm, Chamaedorea seifritzii
• Chinese evergreen, Aglaonema modestum
• English ivy, Hedera helix
• Gerbera daisy, Gerbera jamesonii
• Janet Craig, Dracaena “Janet Craig”
• Marginata, Dracaena marginata
• Mass cane/Corn plant, Dracaena massangeana
• Mother-in-Law’s Tongue, Sansevieria laurentii
• Pot mum, Chrysantheium morifolium
• Peace lily, Spathiphyllum
• Warneckii, Dracaena “Warneckii”

In Scottsdale, my favorite source for incredible indoor plants and creative plantscape design is Plant Solutions.  They are passionate about green design, and have even developed an innovative solution called the living wall- a vertical installation of live plants which takes up very little floor space while adding multitudes of living plants to improve your indoor air quality.  Green interior design addresses many areas, and it can sometimes be costly to implement, but live plants are easy to add and inexpensive.

Handcrafted Furniture from Reclaimed Teak Creates Sweet Dreams

Posted on 13. Apr, 2010 by Sesshu Design in Blog, eco-friendly design, home decoration, local companies, luxury design, recycled, scottsdale interior design, sustainable design, sustainable interior design, woods

A hand carved chest from Jason Scott Collection

The Jason Scott Collection line of reclaimed teak wood furnishings has options that are rustic or refined, in traditional or contemporary styles.  All are beautifully hand-carved by craftsmen who have honed their skill for many years.

All the teak is reclaimed from architectural structures from Java, and then created by Javanise craftsmen who have been woodworkers for generations.

Headquartered in Phoenix since 1995, the Jason Scott Collection has become well known for the beauty the carvers find in each piece of wood and the history they preserve in each piece of furniture they create.

For more photos and examples of their work, visit their website: http://jasonscottcollection.com or contact us to commission your very own piece.

Luxury is in the Details at Spring Market

Posted on 08. Mar, 2010 by Sesshu Design in Blog, eco-friendly design, fabrics, furnishings, innovation, local companies, luxury design, scottsdale interior design

Last Friday was Spring Market day for 2010 at the John Brooks showroom in Scottsdale.  They hosted designers from all over Arizona and treated us to presentations by Nick Berman from Berman Rosetti Designs, Samuel & Sons Trim, and Mark Boone of London Boone Designs.

The message of the day was that luxury is all about the details- not fussy, over-done adornments, but simple, clean, modern touches that reflect our current lifestyle and the way people truly live today.  Timeless patterns and motifs such as the Greek key pattern are showing up in designs, but in an updated style and done in new materials.

Rose Quartz beaded trim by Samuel & Sons

Samuel & Sons presented their new line created by designer Lori Weitzner, featuring hand-blown glass beads as well as semi-precious stones like jade, amber, rose quartz, and seed pearls sewn onto simple braids and flat ribbons. 

Her Oasis line is inspired by and rooted in nature with materials like jute embroidery on linen and polished wood beads.  The look ranges from urban sophisticated glamour to organic, natural and soothing.  Wood beads are polished to a satin finish in their natural color- no dyes or stains are used, and they replant trees to replace those used in the manufacturing process.  The line includes two tie-backs fashioned of natural tree pods in two options – both are stunning and would work well in environments where a traditional tie-back would be fussy and out of place.

Mark Boone

Mark Boone inspired us with photos and stories of a recent renovation project he completed in Southern California.  The before and after was amazing- we enjoyed knowing that every designer faces similar challenges in gaining the trust of the client to create the vision.  He put it as “a semi-blind date’ – the client meets the designer, they see their work, but they really don’t know much else about them as the designer, and the same is true from the designer’s side.  There needs to be a chemistry between all parties in order to have the best possible results because building (or remodeling) a home takes several months- if not years!  The details of how the homeowners live are important to the designer’s ability to create a space that truly functions well for them.

Blue Jean Insulation is Green

Posted on 01. May, 2007 by Sesshu Design in green building products, green insulation, local companies

There is a local Chandler, Arizona company creating insulation for your home that is better than typical fiberglass insulation – better for you, better for your home, better for the planet. It is all-cotton insulation, made from the recycled scraps from blue jeans, among other things. Unusable scraps that end up on the cutting room floor of jeans factories, instead of being sent to a landfill and taking up space there, are scooped up and shipped to the Bonded Logic plant in Chandler to be recycled into insulation batting for your home.
The soft cotton fibers, unlike fiberglass which is made up of shards of glass and formaldehyde (among other things) are safer to install and much healthier for the occupants of the building. Formaldehyde is a known toxin that continues to off-gas for days, weeks and even months after installation. This UltraTouch insulation has no VOC concerns, and its soft fibers are non-irritating or itchy to work with.
The all-cotton batting is also a superior sound insulator and provides maximum thermal performance. This is great news for anyone living near a freeway, or the airport for instance. It is fully ASTM fire rated and fungi resistant.
Ultratouch contributes to several LEED points for qualification as environmentally responsible building. Being made from 85% post-consumer recycled materials which initially come from a rapidly renewable, sustainable source, it is perfect for anyone looking for environmentally friendly options. An additional earth-friendly bonus for local builders is that it is manufactured right here, which also lowers the carbon footprint from shipping.
The “blue-jean insualtion” is available locally from aka Green at 8100 E Indian School, in Scottsdale. Their phone is 480-946-9600. Visit them on the web at www.akagreen.com.
If you are building a new home, or thinking about adding some thermal protection to your existing home, check this product out first.