We'll be doing some traveling this holiday season, visiting family and friends that live overseas. While we usually make our own gifts, this year we want to make sure that our bags are packed with some small goodies that pay homage to Northern California. These soaps from Juniper Ridge have been a go-to hostess gift of ours for a while now just for their all-around goodness.
posted originally from: AT:San Francisco
Last week Anh-Minh gave us a sneak peek into the Sunset Idea House. Saturday's Chronicle included her longer article on San Francisco's first Idea House, which is also one of the first remodeled homes in the country to be LEED-certified. What's so green about a two-unit house that includes a 1,200-square-foot apartment and a 3,600-square-foot main house? Go below the jump to see.
posted originally from: AT:San Francisco
Form, function and a tasty treat. We heart this Italian yogurt bigtime. Not only is it delicious but we're left with a perfect little glass at the end of snack-time. We've been collecting these vessels over the years and have come up with a variety of practical uses.
posted originally from: AT:San Francisco
Sweet. There's something sweet about the Thomas Edison Table. Is it that the tabletop's made of hardrock maple flooring boards from a Wisconsin factory owned by Thomas Edison? Or that the wood bears 19th century timber mill saw marks? Actually, we think it's that those great red legs are, surprisingly, made of scalloped steel.
posted originally from: AT:San Francisco
When friends from Hamburg came for a visit last year, they brought us this nifty net tote. Since then, it's come with us everywhere. It bundles into the tiniest little ball that fits snuggly in our pocket or purse and is surprisingly expandable and sturdy.
posted originally from: AT:San Francisco
AT,
Maxwell has mice...Well, my apartment is being overrun with silverfish!! I live in Vancouver. What can I do to get rid of these really ugly, fast, little pests! I know they love the starch in books, so I have lifted piles off the floor and cleaned my bookcases. I have also tried plugging my sinks at night. But they are still here! Yuck! What should I do? Help me get rid of these nasty visitors!
bclynn
posted originally from: AT:San Francisco
Green glass. We saw this lone, lovely green (as in the color, as well as eco-friendly) glass at Maison d'Etre in Rockridge on Sunday.
posted originally from: AT:San Francisco
Does Michelle Kaufmann never stop? She's like the Energizer Bunny of good green prefab. Via: Curbed SF
posted originally from: AT:San Francisco
Curl up. We first saw Sun Moon Lake's recycled cashmere quilts on Great Green Goods. But it was September and who was thinking about blankets and quilts? Now it's raining, and we are.
posted originally from: AT:San Francisco
Nate from Loll Designs wrote us: We make recycled/modern outdoor furniture and have been written about by AT:Green before. I'm writing AT:SF because we have been spending some time here doing shows and have a bunch of furniture that we would like to sell to folks in SF rather than shipping it back to MN...
posted originally from: AT:San Francisco
One of our pet peeves is when we see those darn foam packing peanuts lying around on the ground. Just tossing them in the garbage can doesn't work, people. So what do you do with them?
You take them to your local The UPS Store, or you go to Earth 911, type in your zip code, and check out the other drop-off locations.
How easy.
posted originally from: AT:San Francisco
We were lucky enough to find a new landlord who, when we told her about our mold and cleaner issues, offered to reimburse us if we bought eco-friendly cleaners for her cleaning people to use before we moved into our new apartment. She also was concerned enough about their health to ask them to start using the green products all the time.
What we ended up with was Seventh Generation products: Free & Clear All Purpose Cleaner and Free & Clear Glass & Surface Cleaner. We also bought Chlorine-Free Bleach because we just couldn't stand the smell of the Natural Mint Toilet Bowl Cleaner.
posted originally from: AT:San Francisco
It's pouring rain as we type this. We don't feel like we ever had a summer. So we'll just fantasize about buying and renovating our own Tuscan farmhouse, like Inhabitat writer Abigail Doan and her husband Ludmil Andreani Pandeff have been doing for the past several years. Via: Inhabitat
posted originally from: AT:San Francisco
Made in Thailand, the brooms are handwoven from 100% renewable sorghum and bamboo and dyed in eco-friendly non-toxic colors. Sweep Dreams also sells short brooms, whisks, and dustpans, all vibrantly colored.
posted originally from: AT:San Francisco
1% For The Planet is an alliance of businesses that donate one percent of their sales to environmental groups worldwide including the Worldwatch Institute and United Nation Environment Programme.
The organization is the brainchild of Yvon Chouinard, an environmental activist who also founded the Patagonia outdoor clothing company, and Craig Matthews, the owner of fly-fishing retailer Blue Ribbon Flies.
In 1985, Patagonia started earmarking 10 percent of pre-tax profits or one percent of sales (whichever is greater) towards environmental causes what Chouinard refers to as an earth tax. But it wasnt until 16 years later that the idea to form a bigger coalition came to fruition.
posted originally from: AT:San Francisco
For an entire year, New Hampshire eco-artist Tim Gaudreau photographed everything he threw away. He recycles and considers himself environmentally responsible. He doesn't buy much. So what did he learn as a result of photographing his average, daily consumption?
The photos (over 5,000 of them!) showed him that most of it was food packaging. He says, That daily coffee cup adds up.
Did it change him? You bet:
posted originally from: AT:San Francisco
We spend so much time at our desk these days that we think the Sway Stool should probably be our next purchase.
The Sway Stool supposedly helps improve the posture and circulation of the person sitting on it. The stool's central column (which is located directly under your spine when you're seated), is flexible, solid cork, while the rest is perforated. As a result, the seat flexes and pivots under your weight. Because it moves every single time you do, it helps improve your sense of balance.
posted originally from: AT:San Francisco
VivaTerra's Railroad Tie Dining Table and Chairs are made from reclaimed wood railroad ties. Their simple lines and slender profile give them an almost weightless quality that nicely balances out the rusticity.
posted originally from: AT:San Francisco
The strong graphics and bright colors of these D.P.W. bowls won us over immediately.
Boris Bally makes the bowls out of recycled street signs. He says, "Signage has become my passionate medium of choice not only because of the recycling message, but also its appeal to me as an extreme variation on the age-old tradition of enamelling."
Bally also creates serving trays, light switch plates, coasters, vases, and furniture, all out of traffic signs.
He's won numerous awards, and his work is shown in museums such as the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Museum of Arts & Design in New York, and the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh.
posted originally from: AT:San Francisco
Recently forced to buy a new cell phone since the provider switched networks, we're looking for a place to donate our old, beloved Motorola. Here are a few possibilities we've come up with. Please do add your own suggestions to the comments:
• Charitable Recycling Program: Benefits various charities
• Collective Good: Benefits various charities
• Happy Hollow Park Zoo, San Jose: Benefits Orangutan Conservancy
posted originally from: AT:San Francisco
We'd like to say that we decided to be the Test Lab for Kelly-Moore Enviro-Cote Paint since Maxwell has already written about Benjamin Moore Eco Spec Paint.
But the truth is that our intention was to buy Benjamin Moore paint, like we always do. Then we found that the paint store that sells Benjamin Moore was closed, and we really wanted to paint the following day. So we ended up at the Kelly-Moore store.
posted originally from: AT:San Francisco
Just look at that red stripe.
The K Table by San Francisco-based Mebel Furniture is built of solid walnut (from sustainable forestry practices), and that stripe? It's not mere paint. It's actually an offset strip of brilliant orange-red padauk that runs the length of its top. There's also a discreet shelf underneath which can be used for storage.
posted originally from: AT:San Francisco
We wish we had good news.
But two months after writing about the AntPro Bait Station Kit, we're bummed (oh, so very, very bummed) to report it didn't work.
However, you should realize that we only had one kit. If we had the kits completely surrounding the perimeter of our home, they might have been more effective. As it is, the ants just keep appearing from new directions. So it's time to try some of the other suggestions readers have made. While we prefer ants to mold, we're really sick of the little buggers.
posted originally from: AT:San Francisco
Remember glamping? Well, just an hour south of San Francisco lies the private luxury campground of Costanoa. Described as an eco adventure resort, the seven-year old coastal retreat consists of a 40-room lodge, cabins, tent bungalows, campsites, and RV sites.
Costanoa offers all sorts of activities: hiking, mountain biking, music and art exhibits, educational lectures, kayaking, spa treatments, horseback riding, guided naturalist hiking, kayaking, surfing lessons, yoga classes. There's an onsite restaurant, too.
posted originally from: AT:San Francisco
We grew up by the beach. As kids, we wandered the sand, looking down, always searching for sea glass. So these Oceana Seaglass Triangle Plates are sort of like Proust's madeleines for us.
posted originally from: AT:San Francisco
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