An eco-office makeover, part 1

Lately I’ve been mulling a re-do for my home office because, well, I’m bored with it. I spend most of my day here so after seven years, I think it’s due for a bit of an overhaul.

But that’s all I’d been doing—thinking about it.

Until a few weeks ago.

We had the privilege of interviewing the president and founder of FLOR, Greg Colondo for our Celebrate Green! radio show. (Hear it live today, February 13 at 8 a.m. PST or via podcast after that.)

If you don’t know FLOR, let me introduce you to this great company.

FLOR makes carpet squares. But not your mother’s carpet squares to be sure. These come in an array of styles, textures and colors to fit any room from traditional to ultra modern. They can be reconfigured any way you like and if one should become stained or unusable, you can remove it and replace it with a new one. Best of all, you can return the old one to FLOR for recycling.

Which brings me to the reason, (aside from the look of the rugs), that I’m so crazy about this company. FLOR is part of Interface, Inc., a global, publicly-traded company founded in 1973 by entrepreneur Ray Anderson. If you don’t believe that industry and eco-friendly are compatible ideas, you need to read Anderson’s book, Confessions of a Radical Industrialist.

Anderson committed his company to the goal of Mission Zero: To eliminate any negative impact the Interface family of companies may have on the planet by the year 2020. Amazingly, Interface (and FLOR) are well on their way which is incredibly impressive when you realize the waste usually associated with the carpet industry. (For more information about this, visit www.InterfaceGlobal.com.)

While I’d admired Interface and FLOR for years, I’d not bought a rug from them until about two years ago when the cotton remnant we’d had under the dining table ever since we’d moved in, had curled itself almost double, been reversed countless times and had faded from bright red to almost-pink. At that point I purchased a new rug from FLOR that I’m constantly admiring and pointing out to visitors. (And by the way, I cut up the old carpet and layered it between my raised beds where it will keep down weeds for several years at least before it completely disintegrates.)

Back to my office…

As I said, I’d been thinking about re-doing it, but on the tails of our interview with Greg, I received an awesome surprise gift from FLOR, my choice of a rug.

I was ecstatic! We never ask for anything when we invite someone to be a guest on our show, and we never expect more than a “thank you.”

But when we’re offered a gift after the fact, especially when its something we really want, we’re not going to turn it down!

Last week, my fabulous gift arrived. Anyone who knows me and checks out the selection of patterns, would not be surprised by my choice, one of the more outside-the-box designs—Mod Cow.

Now that I’ve got the rug, I’m committed to painting the room. I originally wanted green, but now I’m thinking I’ll use up leftover paint from either the guest room or kitchen.

(Left) Kitchen color (Right) Guest room color