Bedrooms
Sleep, bathe, breakfast, work, cook, dine, relax, entertain, store. These are the nine key scenarios what we think about when designing a small home or small apartment. So how to satisfy all of those scenarios in a small space? By having rooms that transform from one scenario to another. For instance, the bedrooms contribute to six of the nine scenarios. We design first for the primary scenario, in this case sleep. Then we design for the other scenarios, in this case work, dine, relax, entertain, store. It takes some pretty amazing products to make all of this work.
Resource Furniture – Transforming Murphy Beds, Capacious Storage
We’ve worked with Resource Furniture for nearly a decade now because they always have the highest quality space saving transforming furniture. We share the philosophy that every square foot should be awesome. The Ulisse Desk Wall Bed is a really comfortable bed by night and easily transforms to a desk by day. The Ulisse Wall Bed Dining Table is a bed by night and a dining table or workspace by day. The Kali Duo Bunk Bed Sofa sleeps two kids by night and is a sofa by day. In a small house, good storage is key. Resource Furniture’s storage cabinets perfectly match the beds and we frankly can store more stuff than we ever hope to have.
Modern Fan Company – Cirrus Flush Fans
It’s a modern house, so we need modern ceiling fans like the Cirrus Flush. LifeEdited Maui has no heating or cooling system, so ceiling fans are essential and all we really need. During construction, I slept in the house before the ceiling fans and after the ceiling fans – so much more comfortable with the ceiling fans. And it was wonderful to lie in bed and say “Hey Google, turn on the ceiling fan”.
Cali Bamboo – Bamboo Engineered Flooring
Bamboo is the fastest growing plant on Earth, so Cali Bamboo is an easy sustainable choice. Looks great. Feels great. Installs easily. And I like the origin story, “In 2004, two college friends Jeff Goldberg and Tanner Haigwood set off on a year-long surf trip in search of good waves, good times, and a plan to find an idea for a company that could make a difference. To help fund the adventure, they took up part-time work while living on Kauai, HI. One of the odd jobs was chopping down bamboo, leading to an epiphany: the realization that bamboo could and should be used as a building product in place of traditional trees.”
Andersen – 100 Series Windows
A good view deserves good windows like Andersen 100 series. 40% of the frame material is wood fiber reclaimed from Andersen’s other manufacturing processes. Andersen is an Energy Star Partner of the Year and a Green Builder’s Reader’s Choice. The windows look great. They work exactly as expected. They’re just solid. It’s the kind of choice that you can feel good about for a very long time.
Airlite – Purelite Interior Paint
I never expected to be excited about paint. But I am. Purelite Interior Paint is pretty darn cool. Very green. Certified Zero VOC (Volatile Organic Compounds). Certified by the U.S. Green Building Council. Known to greatly reduce bacteria formation via surface oxidation and high alkalinity. And of course it looks really good.
Tuft & Needle – Mattresses
Very well made. So comfortable! And we didn’t have to go to an uncomfortable mattress store. Tuft & Needle got it right. I love that that the two founders were frustrated by the traditional local mattress showrooms, “vast fields of mattresses neatly laid out under the buzz of fluorescent lights. Pushy salesmen pushed them to buy a fully loaded, feature-rich memory foam mattress. For $3,500 it should have been the pinnacle of comfort, but it wasn’t. To make matters worse…” Then the two founders decided to do something about it.
Boll & Branch – Organic Bedding
LifeEdited believes in having less stuff, but better stuff. Boll & Branch exemplifies this. Organic, fair trade, super comfortable, designed to last a lifetime. They say, “The Most Comfortable Sheets You’ll Ever Sleep On”. No argument here.
Oliver Yaphe – Pillows
Beautiful. Sustainable. We tried to say it better that Olive Yaphe, but we can’t, so here’s a quote: “A line of rugs and pillows made from new and unused fabric waste. Each piece is totally unique – since the look and feel depends on the amazing scraps that we can gather at any given time”.
Plumen – 003 Dimmable LED Pendant Set
The original Plumen is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art – it’s that elegant. We have the 003 Dimmable LED Pendant Set in many rooms of the house. Plumen believes that “it is possible to inspire the adoption of efficient lighting technologies by creating beautiful-to-behold and beautiful-to-use lighting products.” We agree!
Freitag – Bags, Clothing, and Headphones
Freitag makes stylish bags and clothing from truck tarps and compostable textiles. It’s another good origin story, “they developed a messenger bag from used truck tarpaulins, discarded bicycle inner tubes and car seat belts”. And with an amazing style. Also, the company has a great sense of humor – you’ll love their web site.
Meural Winslow – Wi-Fi-enabled Digital Canvas
The Meural Winslow is an art lover’s dream. It’s a smart digital art frame that displays artwork of your choosing. A casual observer will be fooled, in a good way, by this art frame as the rendered images are lifelike and textured. You can display your own photographs and artwork. You can display artwork from the free Meural Sampler, featuring classics that you’ll recognize such as Gauguin’s Still Life With Oranges. And with a subscription you can display many works of the masters.
Richlite
We’re green. Richlite is 65% recycled paper and yet highly durable. And beautiful. And uniformly colored throughout, so we can cut or sand as needed. Need we say more? We fell in love with it and ended up using it all over the house – lanai railings, kitchen counter, table tops, shelving. It looks terrific and will last forever. We understand that you can also use it for furniture, millwork, musical instruments, aerospace applications, and even skateparks(!). It was a great discovery and we plan to use it in many future projects.
Ravensburger – Games
Apparently board games are trendy now. Ravensburger has been making them since 1883. And you can tell – excellent games. Labyrinth anyone?
Rowenta – Iron & Table Fans
We believe that you should have less stuff but better stuff. Like the Rowenta Eco Intelligence Iron and the Rowenta Turbo Silence Extreme 12-Inch Oscillating Table Fan with Remote Control. These are the kinds of things that you need to have, so we suggest buying the good stuff and keeping it forever.
Many Thanks
So many people to thank for their contributions. Ravensburger Sean Sliger created the peg board system and framed the custom window seats. Mike Gagne crafted the ply cabinetry and table tops. Beth Elliott supplied and arranged the flowers. Raquel Zimmermann (RZ) made the ceramics. Yu-Yu supplied the rugs. Modecorarts supplied the baskets. Melissa Bruck made the napkins – from Home Depot drop-cloths. Michele Varian supplied the trivets. Maui Hands supplied the runners.
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This post is one in a series that describes LifeEdited Maui. LifeEdited Maui embodies our green, space efficient, and minimalist principles. We view it as a lab for experiencing things that are consistent with these principles. The products described in this post were given to us, which we appreciate, but we would not have accepted if we didn’t believe in them.