The soft furnishings in the Smart Home are from Eco Inspired, who use natural fibres designed with organically derived patterns created from inks that don’t harm the environment. And what’s not to love about that? Here’s our outdoor setting.
Here is Ava, seated next to some of the lounge-room cushions, irritated that her Just Dance session on the Wii is being interrupted by snap-happy dad.
Eco Inspired’s stuff is elegant and comfortable and thoughtfully sustainable.
The cushion covers are hypo-allergenic, 55% hemp and 45% Fair Trade organic cotton and hand-printed in a small Australian studio with solvent-free inks and business practices that reduce fabric waste by turning off-cuts into runners and wall art.
They’re also durable and easy to care for.
Unfortunately, that’s not quite the case with the lounge-room’s floor rug from Bhulo, an Australian company.
Don’t get me wrong, the rug’s very easy on the eye. I also think Bhulo’s doing great things. They’re Fair Trade, Climate Neutral, they support traditional Indian artisans and they give back to these communities by building pre-schools.
All of this is great stuff. It’s just the fluff I can’t handle.
See, our rug, which was handwoven in India from 100 percent New Zealand wool, is continually moulting.
The instructions say that “shedding of loose fibres will occur with new rugs”. Fair enough. But it has been six months now and it’s still like the rug is trying to escape back to New Zealand, 1000 or fibres or so at a time.
Below is a day’s worth of sheddings. Seriously. And it’s not like we’re running secret Pilates classes on the rug at night.
Vacuuming makes little difference: the little woollen tumbleweeds are no sooner sucked up than they reappear.
Little feet doing a Wii dance anywhere near the rug accelerates the flurries of fluff, which left unvacuumed for more than eight seconds uncannily make their way into every nook and cranny of the house.
It’s kinda crazy-making. Stephen King, if you’re reading this, perhaps we could collaborate on a novel about it?
I’m not sure what the solution is, though perhaps I should be saving the moultings so that towards the end of the year I can start my own company flogging “Sustainable Santa Beards”?
