Sustainable Saturday - A New Year 2010

Saturdays in 2010 I am going to attempt to answer questions from friends and followers, have a few guest posts and provide substantive information on being more earth-friendly, sustainable, green, organic, local or however you may choose to categorize it! I hope you will follow along as we continue our quest in 2010 . . . Getting to Green.


Sustainable Saturday is dedicated to all things green - from quick tips for around the home to answers to questions that I am commonly asked.

This week's Sustainable Saturday post is being dedicated to Children's Furniture, mattresses and bedding:

The percentage of furniture made in China is staggering. We determined while looking for a new "big girl bed" for our daughter, that we wanted to find furniture and a mattress that met the following criteria:

1. Furniture made of solid wood.
2. Furniture made in the United States.
3. A mattress that was not treated with flame retardant chemicals.

This was quite a difficult task. As with all major purchases, we establish a budget number that we want to spend. We visited a local mattress store and while the mattress was made locally using organic cotton, the mattress alone was more than we wanted to spend total on furniture for our daughter's room. After searching for several month's, we walked into our local Unfinished Wood Furniture store and made an interesting discovery. They carried a line of furniture made in our region, in the great state of Michigan! With a little research we quickly discovered that not only was this furniture made nearby, but it was also made of fsc-certified wood.

http://www.fscus.org/

http://www.khouryfurniture.com/

Another requirement was to find a more eco-friendly mattress option without breaking the bank. We decided to purchase from keetsa in San Francisco. Now, this mattress and box springs (or foundation as they call it) had to be shipped across the United States, we did purchase a more eco-friendly mattress at a reasonable price.

http://keetsa.com/

For her bedding I have purchased Organic Cotton sheets on clearance from Target. The rest of her bedding is from Pottery Barn Kids. The wall composition was designed by myself and painted by my husband using Duration Home by Sherwin Williams, a low VOC paint.

We are very happy with the end result . . . from many standpoints . . . and so is our daughter!

Originally published August 2008.