The truth about your furniture
Welcome back to our blog. Today we’re getting real with you and talking about the furniture in your home. You spend a lot of time on your furniture, and just like sleeping, driving, shopping, and going to the bathroom these tasks take up many hours of your life similar to the hours spent on that, mattress, sofa and/or favorite chair. For instance: approximately 2,728 drinks will be shared on your sofa, it will see couples kiss 2,105 times, and 3,135 films will be watched with your family on your sofa for over an 11 year period. That’s a whole lot of love and time spent on just your sofa. With all of the warmth and coziness that our sofa makes you feel, I bet you didn’t realize what goes into making it and how it can affect your overall health.
The truth about your furniture.
The truth about your furniture….everything you put into your home “off-gasses” which is defined by Webster’s Dictionary, “A gas that is produced as a by-product of an industrial process or that is given off by a manufactured object or material”. These gasses are the reason asthma is on the rise, allergies are soaring and headaches keep coming back, not to mention the C-word (cancer). They fill your home with undetectable vapors that remain trapped within the four walls of your home or office. Have you ever received a rug or drapes and smelled something off about them? Well, those smells my friends are the gasses coming from the product. Those gasses are classified as VOC, Volatile Organic Compounds; Formaldehyde, Polybrominated diphenyl ethers, and Phthalates are among some of the many toxic chemicals used. They hide in fabrics, flooring, paint, furniture, wood, foam and insulation, just to mention a few.
Start asking important questions
At Flow Designs, our goal is to bring awareness to these issues and to help you make smarter choices when sourcing products for your home to get you to start asking important questions when sourcing new items. Questions like what is this made of? Where is it made? and who made it? Asking these questions will help you see that not everything is as transparent as you may have thought. Just like the food you buy, making sure you know the “ingredients” is an important factor when purchasing new items for the space you spend the most time in. These choices have an overall impact on your health and the health of your family and pets.
Our commitment to eco-friendly vendors
At Flow Designs, we have made it apart of our mission to offer well made, sustainable, healthier furniture options for our community. We feel that your health, time and money are among the greatest assets and we want to protect them. At this point we have found two vendors that we think are doing great things; Rowe/ Robin Bruce Furniture and Newport Cottages. Both extraordinary furniture lines are eco-friendly, and also made in the USA! They are committed to the environment and stand out among the many other manufacturers out there. We hope that by investing in well-made, eco-friendly furniture it will improve your indoor air quality, save you money and time by having a quality made product that will last you many years, and keep the poorly made items from filling up our landfills.
About Rowe/Robin Bruce furniture:
Rowe Furniture has launched the EcoRowe initiative, making a solid commitment to eco-friendly manufacturing processes and sustainable product development. EcoRowe focuses on crucial elements by selecting fabrics produced from natural fibers, renewable fibers, and the use of wood from replenished, domestic forests for the frames and the choice of two eco-friendly seats cushion cores. The eco-cushion core contains plant-based, renewable materials, which replace significant amounts of petroleum-based materials used in standard foam cushions. The eco-down blend cushion core is a modern combination of high-resiliency foam with recycled fiber and a blend of duck feather and down. The cotton ticking used to encase the feather and down is no longer bleached, creating healthier options. Each piece of Rowe and Robin Bruce furniture includes eco-wood and eco-cushion cores. With your choice of fabrics, you can create a complete eco-friendly piece of furniture.
Eco-Friendly Materials Used in their Production
- Arm cardboard: 100% recycled paperboard
- Corrugated cardboard: greater than 25% made from recycled corrugated containers
- Down cushions filler made from recycled plastic bottles and ticking material is no longer bleached
- Springs: made from recycled iron ore
- Nails/Screws: Uncoated. Instead, a water-based lubricant is used.
- Foam: a percentage of the Polyol chemicals come from plant-based renewable, raw materials. Also, the foam is PBDE free and is manufactured without the use of any flame retardants.
- Cotton: 97% recycled materials
- Wovens/Non-Wovens: Some bleaching process eliminated
Click here for more information about Eco Rowe
About Newport Cottages
Newport Cottages is another great line we have invested in. They are a family run business based out of southern California who strive for quality and craftsmanship. Each piece they make is created using select hardwood, sustainably harvested, and then sent over to the woodshop, where cuts are Meticulously made, hand sanded and then carefully applied with low VOC stains for the perfected look. All of these are made to order items and are custom made for you. With each crib sold, the company plants a tree.
Click here for more information about Newport Cottages
Flow Designs commitments to the environment
We will continue to search for vendors committed to creating healthier options for the home and environment, so you can continue to kiss, drink and binge on Netflix while enjoying your sofa or chair, with those you love. In the meantime, we are working on putting together a second-hand furniture package that would allow you to purchase a room of second-hand furniture, perfectly curated for your specific needs, style and budget!
For more information about VOC’s and other harmful toxins please click here
