Lori Dennis (ASID, LEED AP) of Dennis Design Group was hired by a client who wanted to transform his high rise Santa Monica apartment from white to green...a redesigned interior with all green products. Take a look at the before and after professional transformation below for ideas of how to warm up your own interior.
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Many of asked why this project was "green" and Lori wanted to followup and address this question:
First thing to understand is that living in a large multi family structure is always more ecofriendly than one family per structure. Occupants share floor, ceiling and wall space as well as HVAC systems and the energy used to build and maintain the structure. Having hundreds of people use one pool, tennis court, driveway, pavement, common areas and underground parking not only saves energy and resources but occupies much less surface area. Have you heard of storm water runoff? Heat Island effect? Non permeable surfaces? A great solution to these problems is multi family structures. The apartment is also walking distance to pretty much everything the tenant does during the day; work, yoga, farmers market, library, etc. The building is walking distance to buslines and has bicycle storage and showers for the tenants. Because of it's location by the beach in Santa Monica, the climate is rarely so cold or so hot that heating or cooling are neccesary. The tenant does his best to bundle up in the winter if catches a chill. I've been around in summer, the windows are always open. He also happens to be a vegan who is very respectful of the planet. He does own a car and does have to drive it on rare occasion, but he has offset his carbon footprint by purchasing a large amount of rain forest property in Costa Rica that he says he will never develop.
Second thing to think about in our green apartment are the methods and materials we used in redecorating. We reused the sofa and patio chairs (adding slipcovers and pillows in organic cotton fabric), dining table and both mirrors (added fabric to the frame of the living room mirror). The remaining furniture in the apartment: bed, dining chairs, bookcases, desk and coffee table were given to his very good and extremely happy friend. We selected FSC (sustainably harvested) wood veneers for the new furniture and used Safecoat AFM eco friendly stain on the coffee table. The apartment was painted in Benjamin Moore EcoSpec low VOC paint. We purchased the chandelier used (keeping it out of a landfill) and updated with organic cotten fabric on the shades. Every light fixture contains flourescent bulbs. The linens he purchased were from Anna Sova, all organic material and manufacturing, plus some of the proceeds go to sustainable farmers throughout the world. We gave the old linens to charity. The new mattress is from H3 Environmental ( Read up on owner Mary Cordaro's green initiatives, she's a 30 year vet in the industry.) Only certified organic cleaners are used in this apartment. All appliances are Energy Star rated (required by the building) and shower heads, faucets and toilets are low flow (encouraged by the city of Santa Monica).
Thanks,
Lori
© 2009 Apartment Therapy
I like the dining room table and chairs in the Before, where did you find them? Glad to see you kept the table. Also, where is that gorgeous coffee table from?
view Anne (in Reno)'s profile
If going green means living in a 1970's hotel room, please supersize my carbon footprint. But I'm hoping this is just an East Coast-West Coast beef.
view Max Othermoxx's profile
Stylish, but since when did "going green" mean throwing out everything you owned and buying all new stuff?
view Lisa Hunter's profile
My thoughts, exactly, Lisa. (But if you're going to remodel anyway, I guess it's better to do so using green furnishings and products than not....)
view sporkyspice's profile
It looks like it went yellow.
I guess you do the best that you can in your surroundings.
How green can you really be living in a high rise in the city?
It's all relative. If you were really going to go green, you'd move to the countryside, live in an earth house, produce your own food, ride a bicycle to work and not consume commercial goods.
But, if you live in an urban high rise and you'd like to renovate it with green products, you aren't saving the whales but you're making yourself happy and you are making a statement. And by giving away or selling your old unstylish stuff you are making other people happy.
Happy, happy, joy, joy!
view art's profile
So . . . what is "green" about this?
view magnolia's profile
art - how often can someone live in the country and commute by bike? Living out in the country generally requires the use of a car to get around.
I believe living in the city and commuting a short distance to work is "greener" in a much more practical way than living in the country.
That being said, I'm not really seeing the "green" thing here.. I guess you could use some fabrics and such made from recycled material and call that green.
view Laura's profile
Art, I second Laura's remarks. The city is actually a very green place to live because you share housing, walk, use public transportation, etc.
There was a recent study that picked a midtown NYC building at random and calculated how many parking places that much office space would need if it were located in the suburbs. The answer was something like 4,000 spaces. Actual parking spaces in the building? Zero. Everyone walks or uses public transit.
The city is greener than you think!
view Lisa Hunter's profile
way overdone.
view superrenee's profile
For that matter, how does living in the country save the whales? There are quite a few newer 'green' high rises in my part of Manhattan, Art.
Having said that...the featured apartment is in Santa Monica. I've lived in LA. Everyone has a car!
view greer's profile
love the coffee table, any clues on who makes it
view Lynne F's profile
My first reaction was to say it's pretty, light and bright. But all I want to say is the 2 cushioned chairs in the first photo do not look comfortable at all. The cushions are too high in relation to the arms, it gives me the feeling I'd be awkard in that chair, that I won't know what to do with my arms or if my feet would dangle from being too high off the ground. Wish I could test and see if it's just an illusion.
view RJD's profile
all i can hope for is that all the "non-green" furniture wasn't just thrown in some dumpster but craiglist/thrifted
... right?...
view JenJen's profile
My point was that cities are inherently centers of pollution.
Smog, sewage, runoff from streets, massive electricity and water consumers, etc.
That said, obviously cities are necessary as centers of commerce and culture. All I'm saying is that an individual can buy green stuff to make a statement and feel like they are making a difference. But they are just a small part of a big polluting urban area.
view art's profile
I think that some captions that would have explained what was green about the various things might have helped a lot here. I'm not doubting the green-ness, but it is a little difficult to track on with no guidance.
Just as it's sometimes hard to believe when something that tastes delicious can be incredibly good for you, it's not really that hard to understand why people could see something that looks stunning and wonder how it could be "green".
Some kind of "nutrition labeling" here would really help.
In case you can't tell, I think this is beautiful.
view Curtis's profile
I do agree that throwing out all of your old stuff and buying new isn't green, nor is just buying some stuff that costs a bit more and comes with a green label. However, I have to say that the apartment shown in those before pics has the least amount of personality of any dwelling I've ever seen. How anyone could live like that, I don't know. The after pics may not be completely to my taste, but it's a vast improvement. It does look like a lot of the stuff is truly vintage, which is kind of green.
I hope that in the future cities will become greener places to live. I do think they're preferable to the suburbs in almost all ways, but it would be nice if they were more humane and less smoggy. I hope I see more and more ideas in this vein, as moving to an "earth house" isn't really an option for me.
view SFGail's profile
It's counter-intuitive, I know, but in people in cities have a much smaller carbon footprint and pollute less than people living in the suburbs or in rural areas. I live in a city and walk to a grocery store-- my sister (an organic farmer, believe it or not) lives in the country and drives 20 minutes to get milk. And big apartment building are less intensive to heat and cool than single-family dwellings.
The world would be much less polluted overall if humans crammed together into cities to live and left the green spaces open and people-free.
view jeccat's profile
So, to all you who think remodeling is "ungreen" then I hope you LOVE the exact same living room you are sitting in until it disintegrates into the earth, cuz by your standards, you're stuck with it, as is, or else you are an irresponsible human. :P
I LOVE that this Green remodel doesn't look like an eco-experiment. And I love the style and disagree strongly it doesn't have any personality.
Only the line: "bought it used to keep it out of a landfill" seems a stretch.
view patrick (the other one)'s profile
green?
whatever.
Great changes to your space.
That coffee table is really something.
Nice theme in the bedrooms with the valances above the beds.
Maybe too much of a good thing repeating it throughout?
Really don't like the size and look of those framed art pieces in the dining room.
Go bigger, or even nothing.
Fabulous view.
view paulmuscat's profile