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Our writer examines the impact (and challenges) of going local when it comes to home design, following in the footsteps of the Slow Food Movement.
In the house I share with my boyfriend we try to follow
Slow Food mantras. These include shopping for locally grown produce, planting culinary herbs in the back yard, and avoiding fast-food drive-thrus at all costs. Even the dog's food is sourced locally: from a pet-food company located about 40 minutes north of where we live in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
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At left, an unframed blue-wave painting bought at Pike Place Market in Seattle for $40. At right, a Mayan hand-carving purchased in Mexico for $10. Photo: Kristine Hansen
Our adherence to Slow Food's principles is reflected in the interior-design choices we make. We don't feel good about supporting a reliance on fossil fuels or a workforce that doesn't pay fair wages. Just as we like to buy local food we like to decorate our home with this same philosophy. For example, hanging throughout our bungalow are pieces of art created by either my boyfriend Tony or his friends, mixed in with art I've picked up while traveling, such as the ocean wave spread across an 8' by 10' canvas (bought from a bearded artist outside
Seattle's Pike Place Market), or a handmade wood-carving (from a Mayan teenager in Mexico). I practically jumped up and down inside an antique shop in Apalachicola, Florida, when I came across a bin of picture frames, because the wood was rescued from a 100-year-old cotton plantation in the South. (I am still kicking myself for buying only one.)
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As local as it gets, two prints made by Tony, a skilled printmaker. At left, a print created on a lithographic stone. At right, a print created on an aluminum plate is displayed perfectly in a $20 frame purchased in Florida. The frame is made of salvaged wood from a cotton-plantation building in Florida. Photo: Kristine Hansen
It's not just handmade art we drool over -- utilitarian items too. I'm saving up for hand-printed table linens from
Grotta & Co., made with love and care just a mile from our house. Above the dining-room table hangs a chandelier crafted with copper plate over brass in
Brass Light Gallery's showroom
two neighborhoods to the north. I've been scrolling
Craigslist in search of locally derived Cream City brick to build a back-yard patio, not wanting to throw my support towards a truckload of bricks hauled across the country to my nearest big-box store. For new kitchen flooring, to replace linoleum original to this 1920s home, I chose to browse options at an eco-friendly lifestyle store a few blocks away, which puts cash into a local business owner's pockets. What's not to like about that?
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Photo: Kristine Hansen
It's hard to argue against the cause when you hear the numbers.
The 3/50 Project, a national campaign whose mission is to increase the support of local business, notes that for every $100 spent on local goods, $68 goes back to the community by way of taxes, payroll and other expenditures. If that's not enough for you, they state that if 50% of the employed population were to spend $50 monthly in locally-owned, independent businesses, the impact would be $42.6 billion in revenue.
Perhaps the word is spreading. Turns out this pull towards locally made or handcrafted objects has a name: Slow Home, a springboard off of the Slow Food movement. It pertains to not just the type of residence you live in (compact and smartly designed, probably in a pedestrian-friendly neighborhood) but what's inside too. "I've often thought there's a connection between food and architecture. They are both so deeply connected to our sense of well-being," says John Brown, associate dean and professor of architecture at the
University of Calgary, who coined the Slow Home term. On his website,
TheSlowHome.com, is a tour of nine North American cities (The Slow Home Project) along with a
downloadable Slow Home Test.
He got the idea to spawn a Slow Home movement after listening to his sister, a chef, talk about the 100-mile diet, which believes that food consumed should be grown within 100 miles. Just as fruits and vegetables ought to be from within the region, so should construction materials to build or repair the house.
Yet housing is miles behind food, about 10 to 15 years behind, "stuck in the late-'80s," estimates Brown. "There are vast swatches of suburbia still lagging behind in using local products for their construction. Not every city has a manufacturing plant for appliances." And unlike the food community Brown admits, "I don't think we can have a 100-mile house. I also don't think that we need to go that far out."
"The larger a house gets, the worse it's designed. At first glance, they seem attractive, especially if they have the promise of an extra space," Brown says. "Like extra sugar or something, but when you start to use it, you realize the extra space is really just in the middle of the room and it's a waste."
Even on a smaller scale, there are times when following a buy-local rule to decorate the home poses a severe financial challenge. If you really want to go "green" and sustain the local economy, expect to be trapped between paying a lot of money and constructing said object yourself. Frustrated with a lack of closet space outside of the bedrooms, I figured I'd invest in a coat rack. My budget called for one under $200. (Sounds easy, right?) After shopping for one made from solid wood and with superb craftsmanship I realized I didn't want to pay $1,000. So I clicked and dragged a cheap $28 black metal coat rack into my Amazon.com shopping cart, closed my laptop and silently sulked. Now, I throw coats over it and try not to feel guilty about contributing to the made-in-China mantra that dominates the furniture industry.
Next, in search of another wine rack for our growing collection of bottles, and after some sticker-shock, my boyfriend announced he would construct one out of an old bookshelf and wood scraps. A few weekends later and he had completed a 48-bottle wine rack. Honestly? It's a lot sturdier than a mass-market wine rack. But taking time to build would probably not work for every furnishing need unless you suddenly found yourself unemployed and with access to a trust fund.
One benefit to buying local, or from an actual person, is "knowing that you are supporting an artist and that their personality is built into the product," says Adam Brown,
Etsy's press manager. "Most of that money will recycle within the community and stay in the community. It's long-term value, not just a short-term purchase price." He brings up a great point: With utilitarian items made by people you know, there's a greater chance it can be fixed or replaced. That's because you can actually trace back to a phone number or a web site and not a call center. And, if bought locally, no shipping costs or fossil fuels are necessary, perhaps reducing your cost.
If this attitude towards home design is confusing and at times you feel guilty that you are not doing enough to support the local economy -- because I wrestle with these feelings often -- remember that it's first about being aware, and then it's about acting on what you can within your financial and time budget. "It's an attitude about thoughtfulness and mindfulness," sums up Brown, of Calgary, Canada. "Like Slow Food, it requires more awareness. The more people that ask for it, the easier these items will be to find."
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