Globally Green Living

I need a new bed so doing a little online window shopping for beds made out of bamboo.

There’s something about canopy beds and I have always wanted one. I found this gorgeous bamboo canopy queen bed at Things of Bamboo.

Hopefully you’re not in a hurry though because it takes three months to deliver.

If you want to snooze outside in the summer, how about a bamboo lounge from BambooHardwoods.com? They also do custom cabinetry so they can build just about anything you can think of out of bamboo.

I love the look and feel of bamboo and it seems exotic and rustic at the same time. It’s also a renewable resource so grows very quickly as opposed to lumber that can take up to fifty years to grow back.

To see several more selections and styles of bamboo beds, check out Export Bali. Shown here is a double bed with a rounded headboard but there are a few bamboo canopy beds there as well.

Looking for a bed for a baby? The only bamboo cribs I could find were at Celery Furniture and Elemental Baby but I’m sure there are more out there. A couple I went to because they said bamboo but they were only referring to the color and they said things like “oiled hue of bamboo”. They cost just as much so watch the wording.

If you’re looking for a bamboo bassinet, Ali from Inhabitat posted about the YiAhn convertible bassinet. You can use it for years because it converts later to a table, book shelf, chair or toy bin. Bassinets are usually only good for a couple months so this is a wonderful practical idea.

I’ve been having fun browsing Greenfeet’s great website today. They have tons of high quality eco-friendly products to choose from. I discovered them through an article on entertaining in Green Living magazine. Their disposable bamboo plates and utensils were being featured and I was curious to see more so checked out the link. These bamboo veneerware plates are made of 100% organically grown bamboo and are biodegradable so you can put them in your compost when finished.

Another fun discovery was their recycled clocks. My Dad used to do these years ago so was ahead of his time. He did all kinds of crazy things with so-called junk. Shown on the left is a wall clock made from an old 45 record.

On the right is a desk pendulum clock made out of recycled bicycle cogs, chains and rims featuring a rubber tire face. Another crazy recycled creation is a bowl made out of a welded bicycle chain. You wouldn’t want to eat out of it but it would be fun to store things in like a basket.

Since I’m crazy over candles, I had to check out their sections on candles and candle holders. Besides the many beautiful candle holders made out of recycled glass there’s this cool candle holder made out of bicycle freewheels and cogs. They refer to it as elegant and although I love it, I wouldn’t necessarily refer to it as such.

There’s much more to see at Greenfeet so browse around when you get a chance. I also discovered the “More Hip than Hippie” podcast there featuring subjects such as organic gardening, safe cookware, natural pesticides and more. Their podcasts are comical and informative and now I have their silly theme song in my head.

Once a week a meet I group of people at a bakery to practice our French conversation. Most of the people in my group are retired, so the conversation is always rather interesting for me as I am the youngest of the group. A few of the people in the group have nice, established gardens and we often talk about plants; we have even been to visit some of the member’s gardens.

Bamboo is one of the recurring conversation topics in the group. One of the members of my group loves bamboo, so every time he sees a bamboo story on the paper he always shows it to us. He also bought a shirt made of bamboo a while back. And of course, every time one of us sees any interesting information about bamboo, we always report to the group. And so I have accumulated a little bit of information about bamboo and I will share some of it with you.

Recently, I learned that bamboo is a rather difficult plant to propagate and thus the price for a tiny cutting can be quite high-say around $70 for a small plant. However, once bamboo is established it spreads quickly, so if you have it in your garden, you’d better love it or you’d better keep it in a pot. Since bamboo grows very fast, it is by excellence a renewable resource. It is also a rather versatile material. Its fibers are so strong that in Japan bamboo is used to construct high rises; you can also see cutting boards made of it as well as flooring among other things. Actually, if you want to see garden and home bamboo items, you should get the book “Bamboo Style” published by Taschen. However, bamboo also can be rather soft and you can find many clothing and house items for sale. If you’re curious, drop by Target to check out the bamboo sheets. With a 250-thread count sheet, one is sure to have sweet dreams. I bet the Earth rejoices as well!

And of course, if you want to know more, where else would you go but to Wikipedia?