Three years ago I was ready to throw my laptop out the window. Actually, it was more like throw it at the contractor who kept insisting we should just use…
The chemical smell hit me the second I walked into that furniture warehouse outside Charlotte last spring. You know that particular cocktail of off-gassing polyurethane and flame retardants that furniture…
I was standing in my friend Maya’s kitchen last Tuesday having one of those “oh shit, that’s brilliant” moments. She’d been complaining about this space for months – the previous…
My neighbour came by last Saturday morning while I was loading lumber, holding her coffee mug and looking pretty annoyed. Her plastic patio chairs had finally given up – cracked…
My neighbour Sarah called me last Tuesday, frustrated beyond belief. She'd spent her entire weekend assembling what IKEA promised was an "eco-friendly" bedroom set, only to wake up the next…
Standing on my neighbour Sarah's patio last weekend, I watched her wrestle with what had once been a beautiful teak dining set. Three years of Pacific Northwest weather had turned…
My neighbour's cat, Mochi, has this habit of scratching my reclaimed Douglas fir fence posts whenever she visits my backyard. Last month, while watching her go to town on that…
Yesterday I found myself crouched behind a row of lockers at Roosevelt Elementary, watching something remarkable unfold. A third-grader named Marcus – who his teacher had quietly described as "challenging"…
I was helping a young couple furnish their first apartment last month when the woman looked at me with genuine concern and said, "We want sustainable furniture, but we've got…
Last Tuesday, I found myself standing in a client's living room, running my hand along what they proudly called their "eco-friendly" dining table. The irony wasn't lost on me. Here…