Urban Interiors

Special Spaces

urbaninteriors — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 20:49:49 +0000

Most children facing life-thretening illness can’t play outside with their friends and the only space they know for months outside the doctor’s offices and hospitals is their rooms.

Because of high medical bills and time constraints, many parents cannot afford to give their child a special space to call their own.

Special Spaces is a non profit organization focused on making a difference in the lives of children with life-threatening illnesses by designing and creating their dream bedrooms.

How the Process Works

Once we choose a child to receive their dream room, a team from Special Spaces interviews the child to find out their favorite colors, themes and wishes.
Our team starts planning to make their dream room come to life from fresh paint, pillows, wall decorations to custom shelves and decorations, our team of volunteers and sponsors complete all room designs in one day.

Who Funds Special Spaces Rooms

Special Spaces has only one limitations, their budget. With the help of local business corporations, churches, synagogues, and family groups-a child’s room is made possible.

How to Sponsor a Child’s Room

Please call Jennifer Swain Executive Director 865 659 8531

specialspaces.org

After more than 75 children’s rooms have been redesigned by the Tennessee team, Fort Lauderdale is starting out with their first child’s dream room,

Louis is waiting, so excited to have his new room.

Golden Isles Sunny Isles Florida

urbaninteriors — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 22:34:25 +0000

Another one of my more recent projects. Combining the large Chinese armoir and the 2 side panels covering the windows that for some unknown reason where placed near the ceiling, helped to utilize much of that empty space. The panels I found have openings which allow light to filter through and give a great effect.

Strada 315 Condo Ft Lauderdale

urbaninteriors — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 22:20:29 +0000

The Strada is in downtown Ft Lauderdale. The building was designed and built well. I have worked in many condos in the last few years that were thrown together as inexpensively as possible. This was not case with the Strada.

Look for the certification when you shop.

urbaninteriors — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 22:03:33 +0000

Certification Marks for Green Seal-certified Products and Services

Shop sustainably, rating the companies you purchase from.

urbaninteriors — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 21:46:18 +0000

The non profit, Climate Counts funded by Stony Field Farms organic yogurt maker, rates companies on a scale of 0-100 for their efforts to halt climate change. If you are out shopping and want a company’s score, simply text “cc” and the name of the company to 30644 to the the Climate Counts rating.

Find a place to recycle Almost Everything

urbaninteriors — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 21:36:14 +0000

Simply type in a product category and city or zip code and the easy to use Earth911.org search engine pulls up a list of neighboring Earth-friendly centers to drop off everything from pesticides to appliances and paints. More than 250 items are categorized as automotive, household, lawn and garden, paper, plastics or electronics.

Some 100 million unused cell phones gather dust in drawers each year in the US recylcing them would conserve enough energy to power nearly 200.000 homes for a year. to find out how to recycle yours visit epa.gov/cellphones.

An alternative to this is to dial their 1 800 clean up (toll free hotline)

Compact Fluorescent Bulbs / Disposal of CFL’s & computers

urbaninteriors — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 21:29:25 +0000

Frankly, I was blown away after finding out that the CFL’s contained mercury and when first being sold, no one mentioned that the disposal of these bulbs is an important issue in the “sustainablity” side of using them.

I felt perplexed and angry over this new technology. I read a response from an article in O magazine, Ocober 2008 issue. Shedding Some Light. Which helped me to understand the big picture a little better.

One woman wrote in to O with feeling more less my feelings. The next month O got a response from Lauren ” Schmitt Olabisi PHd, an environmental scientist.

“As an environmental scientist who works with energy issues, I ‘m writing in response to the reader who had concerns about the mercury in CFL’s. In fact, the amount of mercury contained in these bulbs is very small compared to the mercury released into the air when coal is burned to generate electricity (coal provides about 1/2 of our electricity nationally). You reduce the amount of electrity you use when you install the CFL ‘s, you are cutting back on carbon and mercury. “

With this said, we still need to be aware and recycle these. Home Depot now has a national in store recycling prgram, go to homedepot.com/ecooptions and visit energystar.gov/cfls to learn more about our options.

What I started to do is I designated a show box for old batteries, bulbs and other things I am not sure what to do with. When it is full, I start to research to find the best options to dispose/recylcle them. Office Depot has a program where you can purchase special recycle boxes, fill them with all of your computers and gadgets, take the box to office depot and they will ship it for free to the appropriate recycling stations.

Comfy cottage in Ft Lauderdale

urbaninteriors — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 17:09:40 +0000

I hope that by sharing my work and thoughts about my work, my clients will have a better idea of what my work is about, the good, bad and boring parts of putting great design together.

A great before and after

urbaninteriors — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 17:08:23 +0000

We did this back in 2000 +or -. We had a contest in a local paper in the burbs for a makeover of one room of someones house. We had many people write in, why they deserved this, and our winner was a very cool single mom, who just finished her breast cancer treatments. It was a no brainer to choose her for the makeover. We really enjoyed doing this project. Amazing what some paint and good energy can do.

My painter, Enrique, volunteered his time to do the painting for this, sanded and sprayed all of the furniture at his shop, thanks to him, and Margo, the place turned out awesome