Open Studio

21
Jul 10

Brock Moran Home Chooses an Agave Superior Rug to Achieve Livable Luxury

Posted by Whitney

This week we found another gorgeous and inviting North Carolina home that we think you will enjoy. Brock Moran Home, a Charlotte, North Carolina based home furnishing store founded by Brock McLendon, designed this beautiful lakeside home with a vision of livable luxury. To achieve the look, they paired unique textures together in a sophisticated color palette of tans, browns, grays and greens and topped it off with a few inviting splashes of color.

Merida’s Agave Superior rug in Quarry adds natural texture that offsets the plush velvety surface of the sofa and smooth hardwood floors. The rug adds visual interest and dimension to the room without distracting from the striking zebra ottoman resting on it. The Quarry color picks up coloring throughout the room without blending or getting lost in the other pieces.

Brock Moran Home did a fantastic job on this house – we’re dying to cozy up on the couch and take in the beautiful surroundings.

View additional Agave Superior colorways, see specs, and create a rug quote here.

21
Jul 10

Inspired With Sustainability

Posted by Bojan

I’m Bojan. At Merida I’m part of the marketing team where I work to create websites, technology tools also really anything else we need a hand with. I wanted to share with you the story behind one of those “other things” that inspired me.

If you are a regular reader of our blog, you probably know that we’re very passionate about sustainability. We strive to educate and inspire people outside our company and we also don’t overlook educating and inspiring our own employees.

The Sustainability Poster Mission

A month ago, Merida’s Director of Sustainability and frequent blog contributor, Zairo Cheibub asked me to create a simple poster that illustrates the fundamental problem we are facing with the environment – and the problem we are committed to helping solve.

Zairo, a former college professor and MIT student had put together a detailed document describing our environmental crisis. I immediately realized that the task of translating this into a simple poster was going to be a challenge though a necessary one to get the point across simply and effectively.

We worked together to finally boil the information down to just the key facts in chronological order so that people could more easily understand where we came from and better understand the problem with where we are going. We decided to place to poster (pictured below) in the lunchroom in our home office so that we could all learn and be inspired even while heating up leftover pasta.

Did The Poster Inspire?

I found that the process of creating this poster really inspired me and I hope it has the same impact on others. To me it illustrates that it has taken humans a handful of years to destroy something that took nature billions of years to create.

It also illustrates the negative impact oil and the petroleum industry has on the environment (something that the BP Oil Spill in the Gulf has really underscored.) The underlying message to me is that humankind needs to change its destructive ways; otherwise the living conditions on Earth will simply return to something uninhabitable.

I can tell you that it definitely opened my eyes. I knew that pollution was getting out of control but I didn’t realize that it was this bad and I work for a company dedicated to sustainable design!

If the global average temperature rises just 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit, ice caps will melt, and the coastal cities will flood! This is not your water-in-the-basement kind of flood; we’re talking about full-scale high-rise buildings under the water and that is very frightening.

Here is what I’ve personally been inspired to do:

From now on I’ll think twice before purchasing products that come in plastic containers.
I have stopped purchasing bottled water since tap water tastes fine where I live and is free.
I don’t use plastic grocery bags – I bring my reusable grocery bags shopping.
I’ve been riding my bicycle to work since I started working for Merida because my wife used our car but now that her new job is walking distance, I will continue to bike across Boston to work.

Best of all, I’m passionate about spreading the word and happy that I’m working for a company that is trying to make a difference. By creating the poster, writing this blog post, and by talking to my friends and family I’m making a difference.

Alone we can’t change much but we can inspire others to join us and that can change a lot. Please leave me a comment if you’ve found any of this inspiring or would like to share your own tips for how you’re trying to make a difference.

09
Jul 10

How to Reuse Our Sample Box

Posted by Whitney

Quick show of hands, how many of you have received our new sample box? I hope you didn’t throw it out because if you did you missed a chance to be very hip and sustainable.

Maegan Fee our Creative Director created our new sample boxes as part of an overall branding update. While our brand has always stood for sustainability and great design its always evolving and improving on both fronts.

Our new sample box launched this year is just one more way we’re trying to remain dedicated to design and sustainability in all we do. Our sample boxes were created with cool patters on the inside and as Maegan shows you below, they can very easily be re-used to make a nice storage container or gift box.

08
Jul 10

Staying Cool With Wool Rugs

Posted by Whitney

In Boston where our home offices are we’re having a heat wave. This has got us all thinking about ways to keep cool – with style of course and this got me thinking. What about wool?

We’ve said all along that wool like we use in our Sweater Rugs, Pure Rugs, and all of our designer wool rugs is a remarkable fiber with remarkable properties. Wool has been used for over 10,000 years and in very hot climates due to its temperature regulating properties and comfort. So what is it exactly that wool does to help keep us cool and warm?

A Little Wool History

Well for starters lets look at a little history to gain some perspective. According to Wikipedia, the oldest known European wool textile from around 1500 BC was found preserved in a Danish Bog. Wool fibers from wild goats found in a prehistoric cave dating as far back as 34,000 BC suggest that wool fabrics were made even earlier.

Wool experts believe that ancient civilizations living in Mesopotamia cultivated sheep for food and clothing 10,000 years ago. Because sheep are herd animals, this created a mobile resource for basic human needs. The warmth of wool clothing and the mobility of sheep allowed people to spread civilization beyond the warm climate of the Mesopotamian Valley.

Why Wool Rugs Are Cool

Wool’s ability to regulate temperature, insulate and even cool come from two very cool characteristics. The first actually has to do with air. Still air pockets are one of the best insulators in nature. The natural crimp in wool fibers make them stand apart from each other creating millions of tiny air pockets. The impact of laying a wool rug on your floor is like laying incredibly efficient and safe insulation on your floors.

Wool rugs reduce heating and cooling energy requirements by preventing heat loss and preventing heat rising through the floor keeping your room cool and comfortable. If you use air conditioners you will appreciate the insulation on the floors as the cooled air sinks to the floor where you don’t want it warmed by heat rising from the floor.

The other unique feature of wool which helps cool you down is its ability to absorb moisture. Wool fibers are hygroscopic, meaning they readily absorb moisture. Wool can absorb up to 40% of its own weight in moisture and still remain dry. Wool is also not susceptible to mold due to its unique structure.

As they absorb moisture, wool fibers warm up reducing humidity and condensation in the room. Conversely as moisture evaporates back into the air it cools down. This process means less energy is required to heat and cool a room.

Conclusion

I think you’ll agree with me when I say wool is very cool and that is part of why we love working with it. With its amazing room temperature and moisture regulating properties we shouldn’t overlook wool’s most obvious feature however, its soft and gorgeous and makes fantastic looking, durable rugs. In future posts we’ll explore some of wool’s other amazing characteristics such as safety, sustainability and ease of designing textiles with it.