NeoCon was in town last week–which means nothing to most homeowners.
It is a major international furnishings show held annually at The Merchandise Mart and nearby showrooms. But the focus is on contract furnishings destined for offices, hotels, restaurants, public spaces etc.
In the last decade, though, any number of trends–including the rise of the home office, on one hand, and the general softening up of public spaces, on the other–have blurred the once strict division between residential and contract furniture.
For homeowners, this opens up a whole new world of possibilities for feathering the nest.
And these possibilities often come with a degree of research and development that isn’t typical of home furnishings. Commercial-grade fabric, for instance, has to meet stringent durability standards. Same for floor coverings.
We “shopped” NeoCon this year looking for the best and most interesting commercial products that cross over nicely to the home front. Here are five of our favorite things:
1. Carpet tiles long have been a staple
of commercial flooring. And they have looked the part in a cold, flat, antiseptic way.
But Interface, one of the largest makers in the category and an innovator in design (as well as environmental consciousness), is touting louder than ever the residential possibilities of its squares.
And those squares have gotten quite hip over the years.
There are now carpet tiles in chenille-like stripes (on a whim, if you turn every other square, you have a subtle checkerboard pattern) and striated solids that are downright plush. And even the oldest “hair” tile (now made from nylon, not boar’s hair) is looking industrial-chic these days.
“It makes so much sense for our transient society, “says Chip DeGrace, vice president, creative strategy, at Interface, who notes that carpet tiles do not need to be glued down in residential settings. Only the perimeter edges of an area rug need to be secured with double-face tape. For a larger, wall-to-wall installation, a center grid should be secured. The rest of the tiles need nothing. “They are built to hug the floor,” DeGrace says.
They also are built to take a pounding. Tiles can be picked up and rinsed under the faucet–or replaced as needed.
Confident of their products’ home appeal, a number of Interface employees were happy to show and tell their own private tile stories:
DeGrace unfurled a carpet of green “hair” tiles (it looks like faux grass) in his “knotty pine basement,” a stylish dropcloth for his three boys, two dogs and cat.
Creative director Russ Ramage did several area rugs out of the same grassy-looking stuff for his country home on the Michiana shore. And for his high-rise apartment in the city, he puzzled together a modern rug using plush tiles of a taupe color.
Most carpet tiles measure about 19 inches square, although other sizes are available. Prices run $20 to $25 a square yard; there is a minimum order of one box (20 tiles, 5 yards). Generally speaking, enough tiles to make an area rug for an average dining room will cost homeowners less than $200.
Call 800-336-0225, ext. 6511, for information and samples.
2. Since Herman Miller unveiled its now-iconic Aeron (ultimate office chair) in 1994, anybody and everybody in the world of office furniture has tried to dethrone it.
Knoll introduced a contender this year that also happens to be quite pretty.
The Life chair, designed by the New Zealand-based Formway Design Studio, is a high-performance desk chair that can be gussied up as you like it. Seat and back are like separates in fashion–cover the back in the special mesh fabric developed for the chair and the seat in leather, or however you please. Toppers (slipcovers) can be ordered too.
But the real beauty of the Life chair is in how it moves “intuitively,” as designer Mark Pennington likes to put it.
“The chair is engineered to keep you naturally in balance,” Pennington says, noting the minimal number of levers and knobs. Instead, the chair responds automatically to a sitter’s weight to find the right resistance.
We found it to be one of the smoothest desk chairs we have tried in a long time. The back glides. And the lumbar support is uncanny, coming mostly from the extra tension built into the mesh fabric around the lower back. It is impossible to slouch in this chair.
Also of note: the aluminum components are of 100 percent recycled and recyclable material.
The Life chair costs about $450 to $1,000 at Knoll, 1111 Merchandise Mart, 312-454-6920.
3. It is hard to imagine groovy wallpaper. Not hard if you add designer Karim Rashid to the prospect.
The New York-based and always flamboyant Rashid, who has designed everything from plastic garbage cans to sofas, and who is known for his free-form blob shapes, all created on computer, is now designing vinyl wallcoverings that are hip in a natural kind of way.
Wanting to reference the patterns of nature, Rashid digitally generated and then manipulated his designs to resemble the structures of plants, animals, landscapes and humans.
There are five patterns in his Digital Nature series for Wolf-Gordon Inc., and none of them are meant to be shy.
His most abstract pattern is “Replicant,” a vertical wire-frame design that looks like oversize leg joints, X-rayed and then repeated.
His most literal is “Rosetta,” which looks like pairs of stylized buds, repeated.
Because these are heavy-duty vinyls, the wallcoverings are scrubbable–which makes them wonderful for bathrooms and kid spaces. They cost about $17 a linear yard and are available through designers and architects, who can call Wolf-Gordon at 800-347-0550 for local suppliers.
4. Flat-screen computer monitors may be slick, but they have not done much to improve the sleekness of the desk they sit on–primarily because they’re still sitting on that desk. The freed-up space resulting from the monitor’s thin profile is typically behind the monitor and of no real benefit to the user.
Humanscale, maker of ergonomic office products, adds some logic to the picture with its M5 Flat Panel Monitor Arm. By mounting it to the side of a desk or from a wall, the arm lifts the monitor up off the desk.
And it does so with ease. A pneumatic system enables the arm to move smoothly–side to side, up and down and back and forward–without knobs or locks or the need to read a training manual. The head rotates 360 degrees, for those folks who like to view their monitor in portrait fashion.
M5 costs about $360, less for models with fewer adjustments. Send an e-mail to info@humanscale.com
5. It even sounds warm and comfy–Cuddle Stripe, a soft, boucle fabric done in a multicolor stripe from KnollTextiles.
“The fabric is like comfort food,” says Suzanne Tick, creative director for KnollTextiles and a master at engineering innovative fabrics out of unusual combinations of fibers.
Cuddle Stripe is Tick’s accent/coordinate to her Cuddle Cloth, a solid version of the same material introduced two years ago and inspired by those fashionable wool boucles that Florence Knoll used to put on her understated office sofas in the 1950s and ’60s. Cuddle Stripe offers some interesting pattern to the fabric; Tick was going for an “organic stripe” that mimics the raked lines of a Zen garden.
We like that earthy angle. Stripe would look great on a wicker sofa in a sunroom or on a big ottoman in the family room–even though it is technically a commercial fabric meant for public spaces. Tick took it home herself; she used it for pillow shams in her son’s room.
The only caution for home use is cats, says Tick. They may not be able to keep their paws off the fabric’s heavy texture, which comes from her keen (and otherwise “extremely wearable”) mix of rayon, cotton, merino wool and nylon.
Cuddle Stripe (available in a number of colorways) costs about $55 a yard from KnollTextiles, 1111 Merchandise Mart, 312-454-6920. And no, you don’t need a designer or architect to intervene.
