Cool Eclectic Ideas for Buying Lamps Made From Recycled Materials As Great Home Accent Pieces

By Reclaimed LIGHTING.

I love accent pieces. They give a room that extra bit of unique style that really catches your eye. I’m focusing on lamps made from recycled materials because they’re really cool to look at and have a functional purpose.

A great thing about modern lamps made from recycled materials is their variety of styles, and use materials including metals, wood, glass, and even coconuts to make some really whimsical pieces.

But if you’re not the whimsical type, there are lots of other styles that are perfect for tastes ranging from modern elegant to country casual to beach style.

In my search for really eclectic lamps made from recycled materials, I came across an equally eclectic array of outlets from designers with their own online boutiques to the mega lighting stores. The four outlets that I liked best are: Reclaimed LIGHTING, GIN ART & Design, Houzz, and Lamps Plus.

Reclaimed LIGHTING

By Reclaimed LIGHTING.

Reclaimed LIGHTING is a great little boutique whose owners craft all of their unique creations. Their lighting includes unique chandeliers, hanging lighting fixtures, as well as table and floor lamps.

Focusing on their lamps, I love their antique cooper heater desk lamp, which is designed to look like a fan.

I think it’s a great piece for an old fashioned study that incorporates a lot of wood and metal decor, and leather furnishings. But from the picture, you can tell that it can be incorporated into any style.

I also love their reclaimed antique gumball lamps. They come in a desk lamp and standing floor lamp style.

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Beautiful Eco-Style Ideas For Selecting Outdoor Patio Furniture Made From Recycled Plastics

Summer is always a special time for enjoying our outdoor living spaces by inviting family and friends over for barbeques and a good time.

While entertaining, we also like it when our outdoor environment is beautiful and comfortable so everyone can enjoy it. If it’s your first home or you’re just looking for some new outdoor patio furniture and you have an eco-penchant, then I have some ideas for you.

POLYWOOD Mission 8 Piece Deep Seating Set made using HDPE recycled plastic. Photo courtesy of POLYWOOD Furniture.

An eco-material that’s become increasingly popular over recent years is recycled high-density polyethylene (HDPE), which things like plastic bottles of milk, shampoo, and detergent are made of.

HDPE plastic has the number 2 recycle symbol. It’s known for its high strength-to-density ratio, as well as other properties including its low risk of leaching and corrosion-resistant properties, including resistance to environmental stressors, such as salt water, fungus, and insects.

Some other benefits of buying furniture made from HDPE – especially recycled HDPE – is that since it’s plastic, it can’t rot, and since it’s high density plastic, it won’t splinter or crack. Other benefits of the plastic over wood, include that is doesn’t require waterproofing, painting, staining, or other similar maintenance.

Another great aspect of HDPE plastics is that the color is mixed in during the molten stage of production, so the color runs all the way through the material and is very resistant to fading from sun exposure. Many companies also add an ultraviolet (UV) ray resistant additive into their materials to increase their resistance to fading.  

I found three great companies – POLYWOOD Furniture, Trex Outdoor Furniture, and Loll Designs – that have really nice looking as well as large collections of outdoor patio furniture made from recycled HDPE plastic. Two of the companies actually manufacture their own plastics.

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Great Looking Eco-Friendly Furnishing Ideas For Dorm and Small Apartment Living On A Budget

Triple Storage Cubes Plus bookcase.

Most people have the same basic goals when planning a living space – they want it to look good, be functional, and be economic, but if you have an eco-penchant too, you want to make sure your choices help sustain the environment and protect you from harmful chemicals found in many conventionally-made furnishings.

Right now, as usual, there aren’t that many department stores or even specialty stores near most of us, so our best options are still going shopping online. And, the great news is that there are lots of great eco-stores on the net that won’t break the bank.

Three great eco-outlets on the net that are more like malls are: The Ultimate Green Store, Pristine Planet, and Shades of Light.

The Ultimate Green Store

The Ultimate Green Store feels just like its name implies, has just about everything green that you can think of for your home, office, and life, including wide arrays of home and office furniture, office supplies, electronics, organic mattresses, bedding, linens, apparel accessories, and skin and bath products. And, these are just some of what they have, with most of their things well under $100.

Quad Cubby Organizer. Image by The Ultimate Green Store.

But getting back to furniture, there are several pieces that I especially like – they are: the Triple Storage Cubes Plus bookcase, the Quad Cubby Organizer, and the Storage Cubes.

Looking at the Triple Storage Plus bookcase, one of the great things about it is that it’s tall and slender so it can fit into narrower spaces and if you have more space, you can buy two and put them side-by-side.

The Triple Storage Plus bookcase is great for tall books and can be used as a storage center for other stuff. It also has a closed white back too, but the frame comes in four colors: natural, espresso, black, and white.

All of the Triple Storage Plus units are also water resistant and “sustainably made from zBoard recycled paper,” which is durable, non-toxic, and more lightweight than particle board, according to its maker Way Basics. The company also says all of its products are formaldehyde-free and volatile organic compound (VOC)-free.

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Olympic Park Visitors Will Be Able To Tower Over London From The Newly Done ArcelorMittal Orbit

Just in time for the start of the Olympic Games this month, the Olympic Park’s twisting ArcelorMittal Orbit tower reaching approximately 115 meters into the sky (22 meters taller than the State Of Liberty) has now been completed and will be open to visitors, giving them a panoramic view of London.

ArcelorMittal Orbit tower. Photo courtesy of anishkapoor.com.

The Orbit is situated between the Olympic Stadium and the Aquatics Center. The steel company ArcelorMittal said that visitors to the games “will be able to travel up to the viewing platform (with tickets) and enjoy a panoramic view up to 20 miles, encompassing the entire Olympic Park and London’s skyline beyond.”

ArcelorMittal also said that, “Visitors will be able to take a trip to the top of the structure in a lift and down too if they wish, although they will be encouraged to walk down the spiral staircase, which has 455 steps and has been designed to enable the guests to experience the feeling that they are orbiting around the structure as they descend it.”

Designer Anish Kapoor explained in the project’s portfolio that he “wanted the sensation of instability, something that was continually in movement.”

Kapoor said in accomplishing his vision that, “Traditionally, a tower is pyramidal in structure, but we have done quite the opposite, we have a flowing, coiling form that changes as you walk around it.”

“It is an object that cannot be perceived as having a singular image from any one perspective. You need to journey around the object, and through it. Like a Tower of Babel, it requires real participation from the public,” added Kapoor.

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Recycled Glass Countertops: Transforming Waste Into Durable Beauty

Over the last few years, recycled glass countertops have become a popular option for people who are looking for something unusual, beautiful, and that also makes a personal statement about their environmental consciousness.

Terrazzo montage. Courtesy of Green Home Source.

The current spectrum of conventional countertops come in styles made from materials including: plastic laminates; quarried stones like granite; silicate minerals like quartz; metals like stainless steel; and butcher block woods.

While there’s nothing wrong with conventional countertops in terms of beauty and functionality, the biggest reason for considering recycled glass countertops or other terrazzo countertops is that they’re the kindest thing that you can do for the planet in terms of preserving natural resources.

For those that don’t know, terrazzo is the original recycled product, a composite material made for centuries by taking leftover pieces of materials like quartz, granite, glass, or other suitable chips and combining them with a cementing binder to cure and then polish for a beautiful, smooth, textured looking surface.

While terrazzo surfaces are beautiful, since they’re using already existing materials that would otherwise find their way to the landfills, they’re also not taking any existing resources from the environment.

Today, countertops made either exclusively or even partially of recycled glass are also gaining a lot of attention because of the broad range of colors and designs they come in.

Depending on the manufacturer, they require no special maintenance, to quite the bit, though they all have their unique charm. Three of the top makers worth taking a look at are: EnviroGLAS, IceStone, and Vetrazzo.

If you’re the sort that really doesn’t like maintenance, then you are really going to love EnviroGLAS because it doesn’t require you to do any waxing or resealing once the countertop is installed.

EnviroGLAS takes post-consumer and industrial glass and porcelain bound for landfills and creates products including countertops and flooring.

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