Welcome Urban Patio!

If you live in Nashville TN , have a design project, or just happen to be cruising through town stop by and check out Maku's newest retail and design partner - Urban Patio. A fresh shipment of Maku Lounge Chairs, side tables and other cool Maku pieces are en route!

Evo Lofts L.A.

Check out these Custom Maku table tops we made for a designer that is showcasing a bunch of product at the EVO lofts in Downtown L.A. If anybody is intersted in custom projects Maku is your go to. We can do anything custom no matter the quantity.

Big thanks to Menzie and Dan for working with Maku Furniture on this project!

Reclaimed Wood production...

As you know at Maku Furniture we use only 100% reclaimed woods throughout our entire collection. Here are a couple of pics of the raw reclaimed wood before and during processing. It's hard to imagine that this these old beams will turn into beautiful outdoor furniture!

By the way, we have put a full analysis on the benefits of using reclaimed woods and as soon as we put a few finishing touches to it we'll post it up for all to see. Pretty much it boils down to this -
For every production run of 100 pcs in the maku collection using Reclaimed wood, Maku preserves 14.72 acres of plantation grown trees absorbing over 36,800 lbs of CO2 and toxins from the air! pretty cool eh!?!

These Beams were taken from a building that was torn down in favor of more modern construction materials.


This is the wood after it has gone through first processing and has been cut down into workable pieces to build Maku furniture.


These are slats for the Maku lounge chair and Maku chaise lounge!

Men's Health Best Life Magazine

Check out this little bit of radness! The ever sophisticated mag of all things healthy and cool - Men's Health Best Life features none other than yours truly in it's latest issue! 2 great pages with the heartwarming story of how a snowboard executive branches out and starts a contemporary outdoor furniture brand with sustainability at the heart of the DNA. Ala Maku Furniture! And how about the nice product shots of the Maku Chaise, Maku Lounge Chair, and Maku Bench.

Many thanks to my good friend Bill Bryne of BBPR for the tremendous job in helping put this story together! Here is a link to the story in HI RES from the BBPR blog

Welcome Nest Living!

Welcome to the newest Maku Furniture partner, Nest Living. Shaan and crew have a cool little store in Jacksonville Florida and we are stoked to be working with them!

Here's a big high 5 to Nest Living!

West Coast Salmon run all but gone...

Being tied closely to the ocean, I see macro and micro changes in our eco system all the time. Both good and bad.

Fortunately here in North County San Diego the kelp beds have made a comeback! They were all but gone a few years ago and then an agressive kelp reforestation program brought it back. Not only does the kelp offer a home to many species of oceanic life but it also creates some nice glassy surfing conditions inside the kelp when the wind is blowing on the outside.

What does kelp in North County San Diego and Salmon have to do with each other. Well, much like the kelp forests a few years ago the west coast salmon have now all but disappeared. As recently as 2002, 750,000 adult salmon were counted in the run up the Sacramento river. It is estimated that less than 90,000 Chinook ran last fall and that number is projected to plummet to as little as 58,000 this fall. Less than 10% of the salmon that ran in 2002 an over 90% decrease!!

While certainly I feel that some of this can be attributed to climate change and perhaps cyclical nature, there is no doubt in my mind that most of the decline in the west coast salmon run is attributed to man. More runoff / pollution / sediment build up in the Sacramento river basin from increased building, farming, and pretty much people not caring about our impact on our eco system.

There are solutions to these problems, I always talk about the easy ones such as recycling. It's not that hard to put your plastics, papers, bottles and cans in a separate container for the garbage man to pick up. Remember the North pacific gyre and the blob of plastic the size of Texas floating in the ocean...?

Eating organic foods that don't use synthetic pesticides which runoff into the river and oceans creating algae / plankton blooms and sucking the oxygen out of the water.

Conserving energy and turning off lights or electronics when you are not in the room.

When are we as an entire society going to start seeing the impacts firsthand and change the way we live to help mother earth heal from all this damage? It appears that we are willing to pay $4 for a gallon of gas and looks like we will be paying $30+ for a pound of wild Salmon in the near future. At some point society has to take a stands and say enough is enough look at what we are doing to our environment. I think that time is nearing.

Act locally and think globally. I know that's kind of a played out saying but it's true and we can each make a difference together if we take a stand and do what is right.

Earth Hour 2008!

Join Maku furniture, hundreds of companies and millions of people in taking a stand against global warming and participate in Earth Hour 2008 this Saturday @ 8pm.

On March 29, 2008 at 8 p.m., join millions of people around the world in making a statement about climate change by turning off your lights for Earth Hour, an event created by the World Wildlife Fund.

Earth Hour was created by WWF in Sydney, Australia in 2007, and in one year has grown from an event in one city to a global movement. In 2008, millions of people, businesses, governments and civic organizations in nearly 200 cities around the globe will turn out for Earth Hour. More than 100 cities across North America will participate, including the US flagships–Atlanta, Chicago, Phoenix and San Francisco and Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.

We invite everyone throughout North America and around the world to turn off the lights for an hour starting at 8 p.m. (your own local time)–whether at home or at work, with friends and family or solo, in a big city or a small town.

What will you do when the lights are off? We have lots of ideas.

Join people all around the world in showing that you care about our planet and want to play a part in helping to fight climate change. Don’t forget to sign up and let us know you want to join Earth Hour.

One hour, America. Earth Hour. Turn out for Earth Hour!

Top "5" Green Living Facts

Sorry for the lack of updates. As spring is quickly approaching Maku Furniture continues to gain more and more momentum in the marketplace and there doesn't seem to be enough time in the day, which is good of course...!

So while reading the Sunday paper yesterday morning while chilling on the Maku sectional in my backyard, I came across this little gem of info in the North County Times real estate section. The Article is titled "It's easy living green, eco friendly homes reduce carbon footprint"

The story goes on to talk about a new development called Del Sur in Black Mountain Ranch (as if San Diego needs more development..!). But the good news is this 1800 acre development will feature eco friendly building tactics such as Tankless water heaters, Solar Power, weather based irrigation systems. It's good to see that despite the rampant over development of what once used to be a Wonderfully small city by the beach is in some cases taking a green approach.

A big HIGH5 to the Black Mountain Ranch LLC development group for taking some initiative in green home building!

Now back to the original intention of this post. The top 5 "Green" Living facts as brought to you by the ever progressive North County Times.

• The U.S. Residential sector is only 2nd to Chinese heavy industry in terms of INeffecient energy use ((McKinsey Global institute)
• If every home replaced the 5 most used bulbs in the house with efficient compact fluorescent bulbs over 1 trillion lbs of greenhouse gases would be kept out of the air over the course of the bulbs life. (of course it can be debated that the process for manufacturing fluorescent bulbs outweighs the benefits...)
• Green Building, design, and construction drastically eliminate the V.O.C. that we are all potentially exposed to over time.
• Landscape irrigation accounts for nearly 1/3 of all residential water use. If these were replaced with Weather based systems over 24 billion gallons of water annually could be saved according to the EPA.
• An average 2000 sq ft home generates an estimated 4 tons of construction waste. With a little planning and prep it is possible for 90% of that waste to be recycled! (Hello, Any home builders listening...?) Think of the financial savings...
  

Yeah Keir , 1st place Nippon Open!

Way to Keir, 1st place at the Nippon Open in Japan!! Sweet! Keir of course rides for Maku Furniture, Burton Snowboards, Gravis footwear, a bunch of other cool companies, and is a Carlsbad loc!

Check out all the results and good stuff here.

More on the Global Green Oscar Party

Here's a cool little video of the Global Green Oscars party I found on Lime.com Around 2:11 is where you start to see a bunch of Maku Furniture and our good friend Daniel from Vernare.

Global Green party update

sorry, no pics yet waiting for them to arrive from some of the photog's and like a knucklehead, I forgot my little digi cam in the car...

But, the party was pretty cool and for an amazing cause over $420,000 was raised! There were a lot of A list celebs chilling on Maku pieces from Sophia Bush, Selma Hayek, Penelope Cruz, and Molly Sims (all ohhh so hot!) to Oliver Stone, Bill Maher, Adrian Grenier and I think I saw Pete Wentz or an emo look alike.... :) from Fall Out Boy, yeah Pete way to get your green on!

All in all it was a super fun event and we were privileged to be involved with Global Green, Vernare, Cisco Home and all the other great sponsors of the party. Oh and by the way, my favorite brewery New Belgium was dolling out some great Mothership Wit that made things that much better!

Here are a few clinks with some added coverage of the event.

Click Here

Click Here for a few pics of celebs and Maku pieces in the background or on them

Click Here

5th Annual Global Green Oscars "pre party"!

Getting ready to head up to LA for the Big "Global Green" pre- Oscars party tonight. Oh no, what am I gonna wear...! I don't think my typical flip flops and shorts / t shirt is gonna cut it...

Maku totally dialed in the Spider Room at The Avalon with a bunch of cool pieces like our sectional and lounge chairs in conjunction with our ultra hip West Hollywood retailer Vernare for all the VIP's to chill on.

Should be a fun night for a good cause and I will post up some pictures tomorrow! In the mean time here are a couple of links with info about the event.

click here and here for more good stuff

Hurley -"sound and vision" Vol 2

Check out this amazing video that the crew over at Hurley put together featuring non other than the Prince of Bali and Maku Lifestyle Ambassador - Rizal Tanjung.

Click here to see the Video

Riz is sponsored by Hurley and this is the 2nd installment in their Sound and Vision series. We'll have the videos up and available for viewing on www.makufurniture.com in a couple of days. In the meantime, ENJOY the sights and sound of Bali firsthand with Rizal

Mission Accomplished!

Last night about 11:15 pm the CCC voted overwhelmingly 8-2 against the 241 Toll road! There were some great comments during the hearing yesterday including the following from Ralph Faust, retired Coastal Commission counsel in response to the TCA's attempts to sway the vote by bribing ooops I mean "offering" 100 million dollars in subsidies to parks throughout California.

"I can't say this more clearly, offers of money can't buy compliance with the Coastal Act."

Although by the end of the night there were only a few hundred supporters remaining the excitement and energy from what the Surfrider foundation as well as all the thousands of supporters that attended earlier in the day will be felt for long time!

Congratulations all, job well done!!!

Here is some video of the final vote.

Do you feel lucky punk? Well do ya...?

Dirty Harry aka Clint Eastwood weighs in on Trestles. Check it.

Holiday Love from the Chicago Tribune

The Three Ways of Christmas! The Chicago Tribune ran a cool little gift guide in the Sunday Home section and featured the Maku Bench as one of their "Sky's the Limit" Gift Choices.

For the Full Story click here

Many thanks to Lisa and Dina @ Cattails in Chicago for the props and holiday stoke! Everybody in Chicago should go and buy their holiday flower arrangement from them!

Welcome Soho Living!

Welcome to the crew @ Soho Living in Florida! With 3 stores in the state we are really stoked to have Anand, Joe, and the rest of the staff preaching the power of Maku sustainable outdoor living!

A fresh shipment of Maku goods are on their way to Soho Living and if you live in Florida, have friends in Florida, are visiting in Florida, or just want to check out a really cool retailer that is taking an eco friendly stance by brining in products such as Maku, then go to their website for all details and contact info!

Now I can go see my buddy Rob, surf a good hurricane swell, stop in on the Soho Living crew and call it a business trip, sweet!!!

Singe Speed Cyclocross World Championships

As you may have read in an earlier post, our buddy Dennis @ Eclectic Home in Portland but a deal together for Maku to sponsor the Lounge area of the World Single Speed Cyclocross Championships.

What are the World Single Speed Cycloross Championships you ask? Well, mix a bunch of PBR which is one of my favorite beers by the way (my wife is gasping that I have actually admitted this in public forum... hahhaa!) a limitless supply of local Portland Micro Brew, 140 contestants, a tequila shortcut, a golden speedo, some muddy terrain, single speed bikes, and you have the making for a great contest!!

By the looks of it, I'm going have to start training for next years race and get in on the fun!!

Click here for a great recap of the races from Bicyclenorthwest.com and here for a full list of the winners from cycling news.

Congratulations to the winners!

Wendy Williams


Barry Wicks


All the crew celebrating a great day of single speed in the NW!


And of course no contest is complete with out a Kiss Fan!


All photos courtesy of Carson Blume. Here is a direct link to all the killer shots!

Green Living online

check out the love from Green Living Online and all the coverage of the Portland Fashion Week!
http://www.greenlivingonline.com/HomeGarden/lounging-in-style-at-portland-fashion-week/

Groundhog Day...

Day 2 at the International Casual Living and accessories show was somewhat like the movie "Groundhog day". Aside from a bit more traffic you would not have known that yesterday was day 2 of what is touted as the "Largest Casual Furnishings Tradeshow in the World"

Liking to have a bit of feel for the marketplace and starting to understand the dynamics of Casual Furniture it is no wonder all of these companies here are whining about how bad specialty retail is and how the big box guys are taking over. Hearth and Home magazine has a number of company profiles in their show edition.

The funny thing, not one of these companies mentions targeting a younger more vibrant consumer. Even more interesting is that only 1 of the companies makes mention of "eco friendly" products as an emerging category.

Maybe I'm way off here but last time I checked Baby Boomers weren't spending a lot of money on their homes, in fact many as they grow older were down sizing or using their disposable income for travel - cruises, RV, or going to see their grandchildren...

Exhibit 1 - 3 "different" wicker and rattan brands pictured below. See if you can tell a difference in the product....






Exhibit 2 - Traditional "Teak" furnishings. Again 3 different companies...







And there are 2 full floors of temporary exhibits as well as 3 floors of permanent showrooms all with the EXACT same products. How can a specialty retailer in any sector of consumer goods be expected to compete with a large national chain when all they are battling over is the same consumer, same pricepoints, and same products...?

A specialty retailer is just that - Specialized. But when an industry of manufacturers all make the same stuff and there is no significant point of differentiation (branding, pricing, products, etc) for the specialty retailer and more importantly the consumer these guys just can't compete.

I just don't get it?

I guess the only plausible answer is Maku! I mentioned in an earlier post that we pretty much stick out like a sore thumb at this show - an oasis of cool in a Kook-e-cutter desert... The good news there are retailers here that "get it" and understand they need more specialized products to attract and retain their customer base. A customer base (Insert Gen x) that is younger, more contemporary, vibrant, and passionate about living but most importantly has a substantial disposable income and wants to take their house and turn it into a home.

Hopefully they will all buy Maku...

Stay tuned for day 3 rantings on the show.