Great Greens, there were a lot of happenings last week, all having something green in common. It started with mentioning our Green Design Inspiration Contest on the last Green is Sprouting post (it’s ongoing til the end of this month, so keep posting your great entries), to a House Beautiful, Color It Green Event at Room&Board, and ended the week with a wonderful article on Eco-Chick by Lindsay E. Brown about Casart coverings, DIY Removable and Reusable Wallcovering: A Renter’s Dream and closing with St. Patty’s day of course.
Thank you Lindsay for contacting us; we are so appreciative to be featured! The article’s title is a message we’ve been trying to get out about our reusability and for renters as well as homeowners. We think it’s a unique quality to have. Not many wallcoverings have our durability to claim this characteristic. To be able to reuse or repurpose any product is a practical way to make your money go the distance without adding to the landfill. Casart wallcoverings are certainly removable but we don’t like to think our product is merely disposable. That seems wasteful and we’re trying to help change the mentality of a castoff goods society while doing it with upscale, customizable design in mind. We don’t use our slogan, Slipcovers for your walls, for nothin’. Casart can be used just like seasonal slipcovers — if you choose — or leave up and take down whenever you want. The nice thing is that you have the option for flexible decorating. We hope you’ll keep our product’s many beneficial features in mind — beyond just typical wallcovering — and follow Lindsay’s followup story, as she uses Casart stripes from the Karen Robertson Collection to add eye-catching interest to her apartment entryway. We can’t wait to see the results!
Getting back to the House Beautiful Event, it was the first time I had been to the Room&Board storefront in the hip U Street Corridor in DC. What a fabulous facility, complete with a fantastic view of the city from the fourth floor, rooftop balcony. We arrived just in time to watch the sunset and their glass fire pits were lit — I’m thinking I might just have to get one of these…
Guess who was there? It was a serendipitous surprise to run into Mary Douglas Drysdale, our designer partner for her Signature Color Collection. We’ve all been so busy that we had been out of touch lately. We were happy to learn that she has a very lovely feature, Along Comes Mary, in this month’s Traditional Home magazine. I love her colors and particularly lime green with blue accents – a splendid spread! Congratulations, Mary!!
I also ran into Megan Blake, another talented interior designer, and her husband Greg, an architect. Unfortunately, I missed getting a picture. Megan is the complete package: smart, funny, beautiful and talented and has a great head for marketing and business. 
She has a great blog too, DC Design Coop, as well as another one on her website, where I learned she was featured recently in Houzz. Kudos! Houzz is one of our favorite sources. I enjoy our conversations whenever I have an opportunity to get together with these exceptional women.
My husband and I met Yulia Mikhalchuk, one of the photographers “working” the event. She took our picture, but I’m not the best subject so it will be interesting to see how it came out. I’m sure she’ll work her magic, because she is another talented artiste, who also writes a fun blog called Dress Hopper, discussing fashion, art, philanthropy and many other things in and around DC.
There was so much to see at Room&Board that fortunately we were sent home with their very thick, 380 page catalog, so I can take my time to really browse. I did see these lights, however, but drats, didn’t take a picture, but coincidentally, they came to me in their email that I received today. How timely and thoughtful.
Also in my “goodie bag” was House Beautiful’s Favorite Paint Color Guide. How exciting!! I can really use this as a resource. I’m a painter before I’m a wallcovering designer, for our designs come from what I originally paint and illustrate.
What I’m really sorry I missed out on but I thought was a clever and fun marketing idea, was their Green Chair Giveaway Scavenger Hunt. Eleven chairs and cans of Aura Paint were given away throughout the contest to those who were the first to show up at iconic locations where the chairs were being photographed. Congratulations to the lucky winners!
Ending on another happening and green note. We were happy to learn that Newell Turner, Editor-in-Chief of House Beautiful, along with other important industry experts, attended The America-Made Conference. This topic will be “the publication of their April issue that focuses on American design. According to the the survey, 91% of consumers agree that when given a choice they would prefer to buy American furniture…” We’re looking forward to reading it and we’re happy to say that Casart is also made in America!
May the luck of St. Patty’s day last all year and don’t forget to keep your green on!
— Ashley
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