I came home the other day to a wonderful surprise, a new doormat. Ok sure, to some of you that might not be too exciting. But if you had seen the poor excuse of a carpet scrap that I had been wiping my feet on before, you would have been stoked too. My wife brought it home from one of her favorite brick and mortar stores Artichokes and Company. It was made by Creare and is 1 1/2" thick coir fiber, and has a beautiful red orchid on it. Turns out that they even use pure vegetable dyes, which they claim are very fade resistant. Best of all, it was only $25. I am always excited to see some good modern products, so I thought I would check out the rest of the line, to see if it was a nice as ours. Unfortunately, most of their line is not modern, but there are a few gems mixed in with the group. Looks like Creare sells at quite a few stores, check here to see if there is one near you, or you can contact Artichokes and Company, and get one from them.

These little modular wood deck tiles made their way around the blogs a couple days ago, but I was hesitant to post anything about them until I knew a little bit more about the price. So here is the inside scoop. First for those of you that don't know anything about them, they are modular wooden squares that can be easily assembled on top of any hard flat surface, with no tools needed. They are available in several different patterns, and types of wood. One of the best wood choices is Ipe which is a sustainable hardwood, that is very durable. I contacted my local distributer to check for prices, and was pleasantly surprised. Ok, so it's not Target cheap, but its not bad. They start at $7.35 a square foot, which is a pretty good deal when you compare it to what it would cost to build your own comparable deck. Of course this assumes you have a hard surface to put them on already. I think that one are that these little guys shine is the portability factor. They would be great if you had a apartment with a small cement deck you wanted to cover. I thought they might even look good in the bathroom just outside the tub for a ofuro style look. Check them out here.

Ok, I have to admit, there are a couple of things that I am an absolute sucker for when it comes to design. #1 Anything modular. The idea of a product that is flexible enough to be put together in a variety of ways, and allows for some creativity just appeals to me. #2 Green Design. To me good design should be global, since it is at the root of all consumerism, it only makes sense that efforts to protect our planet should start here. So, with these two weaknesses in mind, MIOculture has won my heart with their 3D Wallpaper. These made their way around the blogs about a year ago, but I thought that they were worth mentioning again for all of those that didn't catch it the first time. The 12" x 12" tiles can be arranged in any configuration you want and rotating them changes the pattern you get. They even have a program at their website that you can practice arranging them however you want. They are made completely of post and pre-consumer waste paper, and come with disasembly and recycling instructions. They come in four colors, and best of all, they are affordable. For $28 you get a pack of 12 tiles, or enough for a 3' x 4' space on your wall. That makes doing a whole wall fairly reasonable, or who says you have to do a whole wall. I think that a 3' x 4' section on a big wall would look great.