I’ve been catching up on reading decorating blogs and magazines lately. One advantage of ploughing through a backlog of posts from recent trade shows and magazine feature articles looking for trends is that it clarifies whether what you’re seeing are passing fancies or a change in the zeitgeist. I believe this is definitely one of those moments of change. The way we decorate  is changing for a variety of reasons, from the economic climate and the resulting desire to make homes more cosy and comforting, to environmental concerns impacting the materials we use and how we use them, to the open-source do-it-yourself ethic of the internet generation. These factors are creating seismic structural changes in the decorating service industry, dictate what the furniture industry is offering, and are reflected in what the shelter mags and design bloggers choose to cover.

Let’s take a look at what zeitgeist-changing trends make a home sexy now:

1. Traditional upholstery details like deep button tufting, welting, and tiny nailhead trims are showing up on new eco-friendly furniture lines (the ones that use FSC-certified wood and latex or soy upholstery foams). They’re also using timeless texture-rich natural-fibre fabrics like (organic, naturally) cotton twill, cotton velvet, linen, or jute. Both the fabrics and the way they are used create contrasts of texture in a room.

2. Grasscloth, a wallcovering made of woven plant fibre, is a timeless eco-friendly choice for adding more gorgeous texture, this time to your walls. What makes it newly trendy – as with paper wallcoverings – is that grasscloth manufacturers have brought bold colours, metallic finishes, and graphic patterns to the party. The feature article on grasscloth in the June 2010 print issue of Style At Home demonstrates this beautifully (but isn’t on their website). Not recommended for damp rooms, and beware of vinyl imposters.

3. Something the high-end shelter magazines and blogs showing the homes of more ordinary people have in common are that the rooms showcased usually have highly personal mixes of vintage finds, family treasures, exotic souvenirs, and iconic designs – instead of matched furniture sets straight from a catalogue or showroom floor.  Why? They’re more interesting, soulful, and expressive to look at and to live with! On the ‘exotic souvenir’ side of this equation, watch for the ikat fabrics and mother-of-pearl inlaid tables that are making the world-traveller look feel fresh. However, what really makes this approach environmentally sound is that it’s using pieces that already exist, and that you will love for a lifetime .

4. What also looks fresh now isn’t the midcentury modern design that filled the pages of AT and Dwell a couple of years ago, but a new traditionalism and glamour (as noted at Apartment Therapy recently – not that I can find the link now in their labyrinthine maze of posts). This shows up in the use of metallic finishes (especially gold), generous draperies, traditional furniture shapes, and antiques as focal points. This doesn’t mean the rooms aren’t meant to be used for day-to-day living, like grandma’s parlour. It means people are using timeless decorating techniques to make their rooms feel cozy, warm, and rich.

5. The International Contemporary Furnishings Fair (ICFF2010) showings this week included a lot of cleverly designed pieces made from minimal materials – like Graypants’ Jupiter series pendant lamps, MIO-Culture’s pop-up baskets, and Ben Huggins’ Little Star table. All three objects are also shipped flat-packed; if you’ve ever been to Ikea you’re already familiar with the environmental rationale for doing that. Smart and sustainable sure sounds sexy to me.

6. The move toward handmade, handcrafted furniture and accessories (the New York Times noted that many of the ICFF2010 editorial award honorees shared this approach)  is so irresistable that sometimes even mass-produced plastic objects are being hand-personalized (as with the Oh chairs in the Umbra booth at ICFF). There are lots of reasons people are choosing handmade and personalized items, but I think most of them come back to authenticity and soulfulness.

Authentic, soulful, smart, warm, rich, interesting, expressive, and touchable – like the perfect mate, you’ll want to grow old with rooms designed using these ideas. And maybe make out in them just a little.

Lately, I’ve been really intrigued by Slow Design, which is a cousin of the Slow Food, traditional skills, and voluntary simplicity movements, and the Zen Buddhist concept of wabi-sabi. The published Slow Design Principles (Strauss and Fuad-Luke, see www.slowlab.net) are couched in academic language, and the case studies cited mostly involve the design of objects or artistic installations. However, the principles and practices of Slow Design are tools that are useful to sustainable designers, decorators, and artisans of all disciplines. To summarize (and loosely quote) that document’s main points:

Slow Design:

• facilitates ’slowness’ and provides a balance to the industrial-consumerist model of design.

• seeks to shift the user’s awareness and attitudes about materials, processes, time, and natural environment.

• reveals experiences and materials that are often missed or forgotten.

• strives for truthful, exposed use of materials and process (so the hand of the maker is visible).

• facilitates creative interaction between the user and the object or its location.

• makes users think about where the object came from, inducing contemplation & ‘reflective consumption’.

• allows the object to change, grow, or alter over time to reflect its history and usage, and continue to be used; and reflects its history prior to its current usage.

• comes from open-source, collaborative, transparent, and evolving processes.

• focuses on localness and community, through collaborations and co-design with the local community and local artisans, mapping and using local knowledge, reflecting local values & visual vernacular, and using affordable local materials, to give the finished design an authentic sense of place.

• celebrates diversity and pluralism by engaging a large range of stakeholders in the planning process. (For example, the charette process used in LEED building projects.)

• recognizes the urgent need for stewardship of the natural environment and resources, as well as honoring local knowledge and traditions, and encouraging engagement with place.

To try to illustrate what these ideas mean in everyday life, I brainstormed this list:

Slow Design is: Slow Design isn’t:

authentic                                                                    mannered, artificial, phoney

heirloom-quality                                                      semi-disposable

refurbished Victorian homes                                NeoVictorian subdivisions

modern (while respecting the past)                     like living in a museum exhibit

gardens                                                                          outdoor living rooms

rain barrels & watering cans                                     automatic irrigation systems

clotheslines                                                                  tumble dryers

timeless                                                                           trend-driven

cedar shakes                                                                 vinyl siding

handmade                                                                     machine-made

reupholstering & refinishing                                   buying new

Etsy                                                                                  Ikea

personalized and creative                                         impersonal and off-the-shelf

local                                                                                  imported

reduce, reuse, recycle                                                   buy, buy, buy

limited-edition or one-off                                            mass-produced

renewable                                                                      fossil fueled

So, what do the principles of slow design mean to you? What would you add to my list? How are you incorporating slow design into your home or decorating projects?

School’s out, and summer vacation is upon us. If you’re like me, you’re trying to think of good ways to keep your kids entertained. How about these summer eco-activities?

1. Enrol your kids in summer camps and classes for budding naturalists, like those offered at Edmonton’s Devonian Botanic Garden or John Janzen Nature Centre. My daughter was at camp at the DBG in the rain this week and LOVED it.

2. Plant a fruit tree or vegetable garden together: you’ll be growing memories and your own food. Yes, many garden centres and some farmers’ markets still have transplants available if you didn’t get it together to start from seed. This year, we’ve planted corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, and a pumpkin plant in the sunny back corner of our yard.

3. Set up rain barrels and a composter – kids especially love composting with worms. Here are two sets of instructions for how to make your own inexpensive vermicomposter.

4. Build a solar oven from an old pizza box, then cook something fun in it, like cookies or pita-bread pizzas.

5. Spend a rainy day choosing old clothes, toys and books to donate, then choosing more age-appropriate ones at a second-hand store or the library. Or, organize a swapping party with friends.

6. Collect a bunch of plastic bags, then laminate them to make a tough, cool fabric for lunch and tote bags: there are good tutorials archived at Etsy Labs and on eclipse.etsy.com’s myspace page. I’d suggest doing this outdoors if possible, to minimize any exposure to fumes from the softened plastic.

7. Make art from your trash: www.resourcefulschools.org have lots of great craft ideas for reusing household garbage before it hits the recycle bin. The ReUse Centre is also a great spot to collect reuseables for arts and crafts. Here are some other great recycled kids’ crafts roundups: Alberta Egg Producers’ egg carton roundup; Craft Jr’s recycled craft roundup; makeandtakes’ earth day craft roundup; Family Fun’s Recycled Crafts Contest; and the wonderful blogs Fun In The Making and The Long Thread.

8. Another great rainy-day project with little kids: make some home-made green cleaners and test them out. Preschoolers love to role-play, so give them their own spray bottles full of water with a splash of vinegar, and let them wash off their toys, the windows, or the (unwaxed) kitchen floor. If you don’t have any homemade cleaner recipes handy, the Women’s Voices For The Earth “Green Clean Party” website is a great resource.

9. Plan a road trip to a number of local U-picks and farm stands.

10. Mix up some organic play-dough using the following recipe. (If you don’t need it to be gluten-free, substitute wheat flour for the corn starch and rice flour.)

Gluten-Free Play Dough (adapted from http://www.glutenfreeforum.com/index.php?showtopic=22445)

3/4 cup rice flour
3/4 cup corn starch
1/2 cup salt
2 tsp. cream of tartar
1 cup hot water
1 tsp. cooking oil
food colouring – use lots to make the colours vibrant

Mix all ingredients together in saucepan until smooth, then place on low heat, stirring constantly with a silicone spatula for at least 5 minutes (10 minutes if recipe is doubled, about 15 minutes if tripled) or until it forms a ball. Remember to scrape the bottom of the pot as you stir!

Remove from heat, let cool for 10 minutes. Scoop into a large bowl, add at least 1/4 cup more rice flour, and 1/4 cup more corn starch, knead until well mixed and no longer sticky. (The kneading can be done partway in a food processor – or can be a project for your child, if you have extra flour and cornstarch (it’ll be messy!).) If it gets too dry, add a few drops of water. If it’s too sticky, add more rice flour and corn starch in equal amounts.

Store in airtight container.

For enough for a Kindergarten class (probably 10 kids can play with it at a time), I triple the recipe (which uses a whole 500g package of corn starch). You can also put all your ingredients in at the start, but I find it harder to get a dough of consistent texture when I do this.

In January, online activism over the problems created by new American safety legislation prompted by the many recalls of childrens’ products reached a peak. The more I read about the unintended consequences of the US’s new Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, the worse it gets for professional crafters, small businesses, used booksellers and public libraries, antique dealers, charities that rely on clothing and toy donations and sales, and parents trying to raise their kids within a small budget or within their noncommercial and/or environmental ideals. Not to mention the environment: all the products that can no longer be sold are being sent to landfills or burned in incinerators. Reportedly, many cottage-industry businesses are shutting down entirely due to the onerous requirements for lead and phthalate testing… not exactly the stimulus package the shaky American economy needs. Small Canadian businesses trying to export their products to the US are also affected by this legislation. TheSmartMama.com (written by a lawyer who is doing X-ray diffraction analysis of products for compliance with CPSIA) remains one of the best places to look for updated information about CPSIA’s requirements, amendments, and the issues it’s causing. Most of these issues have not been resolved, although the US Consumer Product Safety Commission is doing its best to answer questions, and it seems that amendments to the act may be on the way.

Following this story, naturally I wondered whether Bill C-6 (CCPSA, the Canada Consumer Product Safety Act), the successor to Canada’s Bill C-52 (not Bill C-51 as some alternative media have claimed), has the same problems as CPSIA? It’ll depend how the safety testing requirements are worded, in the end, and whether there are any exemptions put in place. Bill C-6 had its first reading in the Commons and is currently at committee. The current wording is available to read here. I’m no lawyer, but here’s how it looks to me:

- Exemptions are listed in Schedule 1, and mostly cover products covered by other legislation (such as foods, cosmetics, drugs, motor vehicles, firearms, and so on). There is no exemption or grandfather clause that I could find that exempts items produced before a certain date, so in theory the act would apply to used, vintage, and antique items.

- The wording of Section 12 indicates that testing of products (for, say, banned chemical content) may be ordered at the discretion of the Minister, so there is some wiggle room for the Act to be interpreted by federal officials as not applying to, say, homemade handcrafted items.

- Here’s the crucial bit: The regulations in Section 36 explain specifically that the Governor in Council (ie, the Governor General signing orders from Federal Ministers) may create regulations that exempt a class of consumer products or a group of people, the nature of the documentation required, etc, and how technical reference documents (such as those that set the limits for lead and phthalate content in children’s products) can be incorporated into the Act. So, provision is made for creating exemptions, prohibitions, and technical references later; it’s not clear to me when in the process this happens.

I imagine that existing federal specs and testing procedure guidelines will apply, but I’m not sure where to find this information, so I have no idea how the testing protocols and documentation requirements currently or will compare to the CPSIA regulations. My concern is that, generally speaking, these sort of regulations are written to ensure the best possible fit with the American regulations, so that industries do not need to meet multiple standards. We will need to stay vigilant to ensure that Canadian legislators do not repeat the mistakes made on Capitol Hill in drafting the CPSIA.

It surprises me that American bloggers have covered this issue in depth, and that Canadians have been so quiet. I’d love to know: how has the CPSIA affected your business? Are you concerned about Bill C-6?

(This article was first published in January 2008 in vol.1, no, 1 of the ecoDomestica reDesign newsletter. It has been edited and updated.)

• Good design delights the eye, the body, and the soul, and is nothing if not personal.
• Good design is mindful of many factors – and if it’s not sustainable, it’s thoughtless.
• Going green isn’t just a trend, and it isn’t just about conserving energy. It’s my responsibility to the health of my clients and the planet to design with sustainability in mind.
• Making small changes to your lifestyle and habits can have greater ecological and societal impact than installing new green products. (I’ll cheer if you’re making big changes to reduce your footprint!)
• Buying local (<500 miles) is better for both the environment and the regional economy. If you can’t find it locally, try to find a Canadian source.
• Trying to hide the TV and other tech toys and tools never works. Luckily, it’s the 21st century, and we have the technology to make technology look good. For example, flat-screen TVs are actually (on average) 30% more energy efficient than their CRT predecessors, and their narrow depth makes rooms seem much bigger. (It also makes them much easier to conceal if you have philosophical objections to them.)
• Hotel and spa style can come off as sterile and boring, instead of soothing. What makes the space yours? What gives it authenticity and personality?
• They’re called throw pillows because they almost never stay on your sofa or bed. They also collect dust, other allergens, and VOCs, making them a healthy-home hazard. Please use them sparingly, and keep them clean.
• There’s clutter (tchotchke), and then there’s clutter (messiness). If you have a magpie’s tendancy to collect little treasures, by all means, keep them. You might need to edit your collections for scale and clarity, but properly displayed they showcase your unique personality.
• Designers who create bookshelves of identical-looking volumes without titles are clearly not readers themselves.
• Handmade and well-used are marks of beauty. Knowing the history of our possessions and seeing the hands of maker and user in them gives them meaning and soulfulness.