Category Natural Area Rugs

Eco-Fashion for "Tweens"

By Cameron Filed in Natural Area Rugs, Sustainability Tagged with Recycle June 17th, 2010 @ 4:16 pm

At MeridaHome, our goal is to make sustainable products both desirable and easy to purchase. While we focus on area rugs and textiles, there are now attractive sustainable options for other everyday items on the market - like clothing. Disney Superstar, Selena Gomez, is coming out with her own clothing line. With this teen’s star power, the line is sure to be a hit, but what separates her clothes from all of the other starlet-inspired clothing, is that Gomez’s line is all either made from recycled materials, organics, or earth-friendly fibers! Her line is called “Dream Out Loud” and will launch at K-Mart stores across the country on July 15, 2010. By combining K-Mart prices and prevalence with Selena Gomez’s star power in the “tween” market, eco-fashion will hopefully see a huge boost this summer. Her line goes beyond clothing to include eco-responsible shoes and accessories for juniors, and still, everything in the whole line is under $25. Who said eco-fashion was too expensive?

Gomez has been praised by the media for her efforts, and she has been called a great role model for teens by K-Mart executives. She always knew she wanted to start her own clothing line, but Gomez said that it was her recent work as an ambassador to UNICEF and her visit to Ghana that inspired her to make her clothing line organic and recycled. Helping people become aware of the environmental impacts of their purchasing decisions at a young age is a fabulous idea, and Gomez’s bohemian clothing line is a great way to do so. She is the first to create a major organic/recycled line for “tweens”. Hopefully Dream Out Loud customers grow up to become an even more eco-conscious generation. Maybe they will fall in love with sustainable decor and become the next series of MeridaHome fans!

Top 10 Twitter Feeds for Green Interior Design

By Cameron Filed in Interior Design, Natural Area Rugs, Sustainability May 21st, 2010 @ 5:13 pm

Since twitter.com was launched in 2006, it has become an instant way for people to receive and share news and ideas. Twitter has achieved staggering popularity and has users that tweet about every topic imaginable. However, twitter now has over 75 million users, so it can be hard to decide what feeds to follow depending on one’s unique interests. MeridaHome tries to focus the feeds they follow into two main areas: sustainability and interior design. Ideally, MeridaHome tries to follow twitter feeds that combine these two topics. Though MeridaHome now reads twitter posts from hundreds of users, there are ten main feeds that stand out because of their subject matter, post quality, and frequency. These are our top 10 Twitter Feed picks for Green Interior Design:

10. @NexusBoston – Though Nexus does not update their feed as often as other twitterers, the quality of their posts is excellent. Nexus Boston is a green building resource center that often hosts green design seminars. Twitter is a great way to find out about Nexus’s events. Their events are usually either free or cheap and are a great way to learn the science behind green living. Since MeridaHome is also based out of Boston, the local flare of NexusBoston’s posts are also appreciated.

9. @GreenGirls – GreenGirls is a blog, complete with videos, that keeps environmental activism fun and fresh. Their mission is green education through pop culture and mass media. They tweet fairly regularly and have accumulated a large band of followers.

8. @Design2Share – Design2Share started as a series of home improvement and decor idea videos on YouTube, but evolved into something more. Design2Share has a great question and answer format in both their videos and on their website, and now, through twitter. @Design2Share is updated frequently and their posts are very user friendly and maintain that “do it yourself” theme that their YouTube series started with. Plus, a lot of their tweets are about deals and freebies. Who doesn’t love that?

7. @CasaSugar – CasaSugar is the Home Decor branch of Sugar Inc. which is a a family of fun and witty editorial blogs directed mainly towards women. Within CasaSugar there is an even more narrowly themed blog about eco- friendly home decor, which means that many of @CasaSugar’s tweets relate directly to sustainable home lifestyle.

6. @GreenLivingIdea – the tweet feed certainly lives up to its name. Updated frequently, @GreenLivingIdea posts news articles, how-to articles, ideas, and pretty much everything that has to do with sustainability. The feed has over 9,000 followers which is a testament to their content rich posts. GreenLivingIdea’s website claims to be the most comprehensive green living website out there. The website is part of a broader network called Simple Earth Media that is a new media company with a green twist.

5. @HouseandHome – The MeridaHome twitter feed ends up re-tweeting posts from @HouseandHome quite a bit. It is actually the feed for Canadian House and Home Magazine. Their tweets have a professional demeanor and have links to helpful articles on a variety of home improvement and decor topics, many of which touch upon sustainability.

4. @GreenYourDecor – Tweets from the fabulous sustainable design blogger Jennae Peterson. Her blog focuses on green interior design products and materials, and she has even highlighted MeridaHome area rugs in some of her tweets and blog posts. It is a great way to learn about different products and where to get them for your own home.

3. @GreenHouseTips – Full of facts, this twitter feed gives you the statistics, measurements, policies, and news about chemicals in your home. @GreenHouseTips is not affiliated with a blog or any large online community, which means their focus is making information available via twitter, and they do a great job.

2. @HomeRecycler – This twitter feed goes way beyond recycling. Relating directly to green interior design, the Merida team finds the @HomeRecycler tweets relevent and interesting. The feed is writen by Lorenz Schilling, the president of a California based non-profit organization called The Deconstruction and Reuse Network. The goal of the organization is to promote the three R’s: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle by educating homeowners, building industry professionals, and civic leaders. Their twitter feed is a great step in achieving this mission.

1. @TreeHugger – its no secret that Treehugger.com is the best, most comprehensive source for eco-minded news of all kinds. The treehugger blog has basically become the number one stop for environmental headlines, and through their twitter feed, treehugger brings their juicy current headlines right to you. Like their blog, Treehugger’s twitter feed delivers lots of news as its happening. No green twitter list is complete without Treehugger.

For more fun twitter posts, make sure to follow us @MeridaHome

Wools of New Zealand

By Cameron Filed in Natural Area Rugs, Sustainability Tagged with wool rugs May 21st, 2010 @ 1:03 pm

Merida has a number of ties to the design and sustainability communities. One of the greatest is through the material we use in our natural area rugs. Our fiber of choice for non-vegetable fibers is wool and we specifically use Wools of New Zealand in our wool rugs.

Wools of New Zealand is a brand that stands for many of the ideals we do. We like how they present them to the public on their website:

New Zealand Wool is a sustainable natural fiber with outstanding beauty, performance, maintenance and well-being benefits. – Wools of New Zealand Website

Wools of New Zealand classifies the benefits of their wool in four areas:

Beauty

New Zealand wool’s superior quality enables extensive design, color and pattern flexibility, while wool’s natural ability to shrug off dirt and spring back into shape after crushing ensures long lasting good looks to complement and enhance any room setting.

Health

New Zealand wool is non-allergenic and its natural properties provide inherent fire resistance, air purification and moisture control, creating an exceptionally safe and healthy indoor environment.

Integrity

New Zealand wool is grown in open pastureland following sustainable land use and animal friendly practices, resulting in a carpet fiber that is natural, renewable and biodegradable.

Comfort

New Zealand wool’s natural insulating properties result from wool’s unique biological structure, reducing heat loss, condensation and noise levels to create a welcoming, relaxing and comfortable ambiance.

Another great thing about New Zealand Wool is that they are active in making sure that rug and carpet makers are selling products that meet their quality standards before allowing them to use their logo. Wools of New Zealand measures this quality with three criteria that all manufacturers must meet:

Fiber Content Standards- 80% of the fibers comprising the rug or carpet must be wool, and 60% of the total wool must be from New Zealand.
Must pass quality tests for performance (durability, appearance retention, color wear, etc.)
Must meet control and licensing standards to be labeled through Wools of New Zealand.

Our use of Wools of New Zealand means that our wool area rugs will be beautiful, comfortable and socially and environmentally responsible.

Sustainable aspects of wool rugs include fibers not derived from oil, wool is rapidly renewable, and it is biodegradable. Even if left in a landfill, a wool rug will completely biodegrade over time, leaving absolutely no residues.

Wools of New Zealand also requires ethical treatment of animals. NZ sheep are free range, and usually have about 1/3 of a football field per animal, which means they are healthy, happy, and grass fed.

Another sustainable aspect of New Zealand wool is that New Zealand derives much of its energy from renewable sources, so even the electricity and power used to shear, spin, and weave the fibers is sustainable. 34% of the country’s energy comes from hydropower and 2% is wind.

By purchasing wool rugs, consumers are indirectly supporting renewable energy generation! Partnering with Wools of New Zealand is a great step for Merida, and its customers, to become as sustainable as possible.

Sea Bags – Saving Sails One Tote Bag at a Time

By Whitney Filed in Fun Friday Finds, Natural Area Rugs, Sustainability May 7th, 2010 @ 1:04 pm

I love just about everything Sea Bags! From their founding philosophy of repurposing old sails and their dedication to giving back to their local Portland, Maine community, to their fresh and clean website, Sea Bags has it all.

Sea Bags saves old sails from dumpsters and turns them into coveted tote bags that (like sails) are durable, water resistant and authentic. They appropriately finish their totes with hand-spliced rope handles for a look that is beach-chic and fantastic! Bags come in three sizes and each is unique in color, texture, and pattern.

Suitable for all ages, these bags make for wonderful gifts (a hint for last-minute Mother’s Day shoppers). If your mom already has a plethora of beach bags, check out the fun nautical placemats and coasters in the “holiday” section of Sea Bags website. I’m sure your mom will appreciate the creative re-use of old sails as much as we do.

Want to know more about this cool company? Check out the “behind the scenes” link on the “the bags” page for a fun peek into the production process (bags are hand-cut and stitched!). Also find short but fun bios in the “the crew” link under the brand section. From pet rabbits to belly dancing mamas, the Sea Bags team is almost as much fun as the bags themselves!

Sea Bags Homepage

Green Gifts for Mother's Day

By Cameron Filed in Natural Area Rugs, Sustainability May 7th, 2010 @ 10:59 am

It’s that time of year again! Mother’s Day is this Sunday, May 9th, but before you head off to CVS or the Hallmark store to buy a card, keep in mind that Mother’s Day is an easy time to get something eco-friendly. There are green gifts out there for all interests and budgets, you just need to know where to look.

First, of course, check out the Sale section of MeridaHome.com. Starting at just $49.99, a new stylish and sustainable area rug is perfect for a mom that likes to decorate, or just keep a cozy home. Cute sale designs for spring include the sisal Parquet area rug in Spring Green and the soho wool area rug.

If a new rug isn’t in your Mother’s Day budget this year, make sure to enter your mom’s e-mail address into May’s Free Rug Giveaway for a chance to win a 4×6 jute area rug.

Another green gift idea is a piece of jewelry from any one of the twenty major jewelry retailers that are funding the protection of Bristol Bay, Alaska. Zale and Tiffany are among the major jewelers that pledged in April 2010 to no longer use gold from controversial Alaskan mines including Pebble Mine. By purchasing a piece for your mom from these jewelers, you are indirectly helping maintain healthy salmon populations and protecting the natural beauty of Bristol Bay.

Is your mom a working woman? Help her pack her lunches in a green way by giving her a sandwich bag from ReUsies.com. The stylish sandwich bags are under seven dollars and come in an array of cute patterns. I know my mom would love the Garden Floral Snack bag for $6.75. Not only are the bags adorable and stylish, they also eliminate the need for hundreds of plastic sandwich bags per year.

Finally, when I need some new green gift ideas, I check out Green Your Decor’s Green Gift Guide. The guide is separated into categories: women, men, kids, teens, anyone, for the home, pet lovers, stocking stuffers, and gifts that give back, making it easy to browse for the perfect present. My mom would love the Azuri Organic Cotton Scarf on the women’s gift list; it comes in 110 different colors and is just $29.00! Green Your Decor provides a diverse list that is sure to satisfy all your Mother’s Day needs.

Have a Green Mother’s Day!

Fun Friday Find: Nama Rococo gives us wallpaper that can dance!

By Whitney Filed in Fun Friday Finds, Interior Design, Natural Area Rugs April 23rd, 2010 @ 2:39 pm

Our fantastic Creative Director Maegan Fee tipped me off to Nama Rococo… in visiting their website it was immediately clear why. Nama Rococo gives us a new way to hang art on the wall – and I’m not talking traditional paintings. Nama Rococo produces one of a kind, stunning hand-painted and hand-screened wallpaper that can instantly add edgy fashion to a room. The prints have a wonderful sense of rhythm and movement that are at once new and exciting yet familiar and soothing.

After checking out their impressive collections (I loooove Tokyo & Vine!), I spent some time digging around the rest of their website and was pleased to find comprehensive “about” and “history” sections. I always find it fun to learn about the journey that people take to achieve success. It doesn’t altogether surprise me that Nama Rococo founder Karen Combs’ story starts off with a wild-haired ride to New York City in the 70’s…

The most impressive part of the Nama Rococo website, however, is the fantastic job that it does in translating their high-end, unique and eclectic style to the web. From the punches of color found in the background flowers to the playful animated graphics, the Nama Rococo website does a seamless job of mirroring the sense of movement and rhythm seen in their prints.

Bottom line: This is not your typical classic high-end textile website. Whether or not you’re in the market for new wallpaper, this is a fun site to check out.

Earth Day 2010

By Cameron Filed in Natural Area Rugs, Sustainability April 23rd, 2010 @ 2:02 pm

This year marks Earth Day’s 40th Anniversary. The first Earth Day was on April 22, 1970. The day truly marked the beginning of the modern environmental movement in the United States, and inspired a new awareness for millions across the country. Society was coming to realize how strongly the health of the environment correlates with human health. Eight years later, in 1978, Merida Meridian was founded.

In celebration of Earth Day, I thought it would be nice to take a look back at Merida Meridian’s thirty-two year history of working towards sustainability. Since the company was started, Merida has been working towards three different types of sustainability: economic, social, and environmental. By combining these three avenues, Merida is ensuring that consumers are purchasing a responsibly created product.

Since the beginning, “Sustainability with Style” has been the true goal of Merida. Traditionally, the rug and carpet industry uses petroleum based products and harsh chemicals which means that the flooring industry is dependent on fossil fuels and that the products could potentially be harmful to human health. Furthermore, these traditional types of flooring usually are not biodegradable, so, when people are done with their rugs, they will sit in landfills for generations to come. Merida is constantly working to create change in the industry. Our Jute and Wool rugs are biodegradable and Merida uses natural and renewable materials whenever possible.

Merida has been praised for its efforts, especially over the past few years, when the environmental movement gained new momentum. Merida products have been featured in Real Simple Magazine, Martha Stewart Living, Elle Decor, and even ABC’s Extreme Makeover Home Edition. Over the years, Merida has also become a member to many influential organizations including: The International Interior Design Association, The Sustainable Furnishings Council, The Carpet and Rug Institute, The American Society of Interior Designers, and Wools of New Zealand.

Merida looks forward to many more years of working towards 100% sustainability and creating positive change in both the flooring industry, and consumer purchasing decision process. Happy Earth Day!

Fun Friday Find: Show off your Interior Design Skills with See My Design!

By Whitney Filed in Fun Friday Finds, Interior Design, Natural Area Rugs April 9th, 2010 @ 1:29 pm

Warning: This site is addictive and may consume hours upon hours of your time in one sitting. Now that I’ve gotten my disclaimer out of the way, I have to share my newfound obsession: See My Design. See My Design features a blank floor plan that allows you to design and build a room – from scratch!

Perfect for novice designers and seasoned experts alike, this site allows you to select the type of room you want to design (home office, bedroom, baby’s room, etc.) and then add design elements to the room one by one. Select your furniture, area rugs, walls, plants, and accessories, size them to your liking and position them where you want in the room. You can use the corner with the three squares to spin pieces around. Make sure you do not miss the color picker on the bottom of the screen (hence my super pink baby room!).

Start with an blank canvas....end up with a fully furnished baby room!

This is a great tool to use if you’re designing or setting-up a new room and you already have some of your furniture or a Merida natural fiber area rug (wink, wink). You can enter the exact dimensions of your room and the pieces, and then see how they look to scale. Not building a new house? Play around with rearranging your current room layouts — and save yourself the back the pain of dragging heavy furniture from place to place to see how it looks.

If you already have plans tonight you may want to cancel them; your new found career as an interior decorator is calling…

Fun Friday Find: Reknit reinvents your old sweaters!

By Whitney Filed in Fun Friday Finds, Interior Design, Natural Area Rugs, Sustainability April 2nd, 2010 @ 12:42 pm

The first time I heard about Reknit I fell in love with the concept behind it. Reknit features a mother/child duo that is giving a whole new meaning to the age-old concept of reusing clothes…and we’re not talking hand-me-downs! Launched in the beginning of this year, Reknit turns your ragged old sweaters into coveted new items for a minimal fee ($30.00).

Sounds great, but how does it work? Each month there is a featured item, from gloves to hats to….thongs! You can have a say in what you want next month’s item to be by voting between four or five suggested items on the site. Whatever the month’s item is, you then pick one of your old sweaters and mail it in to the website founder’s Mom. His/her Mom then unravels it and uses the yarn to knit something new and beautiful!

Reknit: How it works!

The only catch is that you have to act fast. As pointed out on the site, the founder only has one Mom, and since all items are hand-knit they cap orders at a mere 30 per month. Fortunately I got my order for a new laptop case in for this month. Now I just have to decide what color I want it to be and which corresponding old sweater I can do without. Just in time to free up some precious closet space for my spring wardrobe…

Fun Friday Find: Mod Green Pod

By Whitney Filed in Fun Friday Finds, Interior Design, Natural Area Rugs, Sustainability Tagged with interior decorating tips March 26th, 2010 @ 12:02 pm

Hi, I’m Whitney, the online marketing specialist here at Merida Home. As the online marketing specialist, part of my job entails searching the web to find like-minded businesses that share our passion for design and sustainability. We hope to connect with and support these companies and we hope they connect with and support us too. In my searching I’ve come across some really great sites that I want to share with you, so I am starting a “Fun Friday Find” that will feature the most interesting site of the week. Without further ado, this week’s first-ever Fun Friday Find is the Mod Green Pod website.

I have known about Mod Green Pod for a while since I had the pleasure of working alongside Lisa in her Boston studio space a few years ago. I love the fun whimsical fabric and wallpaper prints, but am really inspired by Mod Green Pod’s emphasis on sustainability and dedication to creating local jobs here in the US. After seeing Mod Green Pod featured in the Urban Sherp newsletter, I decided to check out their site and see what Lisa and the gals have been up to. That’s when I found their Room Creator…..

The Room Creator features a traditional living room set-up with basic white chairs, a couch, a lamp and curtains. The room looks pretty drab – but here comes the fun part! You can drag Mod Green Pod’s wallpaper prints onto the walls and use their fabric to upholster the furniture. Watch the room come together and get inspired to take some design risks with your own décor! Don’t like what you create? Refresh the page and try again.

Hint, you can even decorate the family cat…

Living Room Before Transformation

Living Room After Transformation

Now all this room needs is a matching Merida Home Pavo Thrive Lagoon wool area rug to tie the flooring into the lovely blue color scheme…..

Think you can design a better room? Send us a screen shot of your favorite design!

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Category Natural Area Rugs

Eco-Fashion for "Tweens"

Top 10 Twitter Feeds for Green Interior Design