Photo by permission of Viesso
Your In-laws or friends are coming to visit, but you don’t have a bed for them or even room for one in your home. Asking a guest to sleep at a hotel is not in your nature. You could buy a vinyl “blow-up” bed.
Then you quickly come to your senses and realize you don’t want your guests to sleep on a bed made of plastic. With all the controversy surrounding the toxicity of PVC, and the chemical additives contained in plastic, you decide to skip the blow-up-bed idea.
So, what are your options? What about a sleeper couch? Is it possible to buy an eco-friendly sleeper couch without breaking the bank?
Believe it or not, the other day one of my friends asked me this very question. Oh boy, I thought, that is a tall order. Not only did the couch have to be eco-friendly so did the mattress. The three sources I knew that sold eco-friendly couches were Furnature, Lee Industries’ NaturalLEE Collection, and Viesso.
Not knowing how eco-friendly my friend wanted to be, I figured I would just give her the low down about these companies and their products. From the information provided, she could then make her own choice.
Furanture
Based in Boston, Massachusetts, the Company manufacturers a custom line of upholstered furniture for people who suffer from multiple chemical sensitivities. Their products contain natural latex cushions, eco-friendly fabrics, water based glues, sealers, and stains. There are no flame retardants in their furniture.
Each one of their furniture pieces is made by hand. Although the website contains traditional pieces, the Company can customize any type of furniture you desire. In addition, you can use your own fabric which does not need to be eco-friendly. A typical 84 inch size couch can cost $5000 depending on style, size, and fabric. A sleeper couch of the same size will cost you an additional $1500 for the latex mattress.
Lee Industries
Lee Industries is a mainstream furniture company, which offers the NaturalLEE specifications as their standard package for all their furniture pieces. The Company offers two eco-options for their cushions. They can either be made out of a Preserve core or their recently introduced Eco-Lux option. The Preserve core is made out of 20% soybio and 80% polyurethane foam.
The use of soybio in the cushions helps to reduce our dependency on petrochemicals in the production of upholstered furniture. This cushion option contains a carbon based flame retardant. Alternatively, a consumer can choose the Eco-Lux cushion in their furniture, which contains the Preserve core wrapped in 50/50 down and feathers and Ingeo fibers.
According to the Company, Ingeo fibers are “the very first commercially viable synthetic fiber derived from renewable resources.”
In addition, the furniture is made with water based glues, sealers and stains that contain low VOCs, and organic cotton fabrics. The Company offers a large selection of styles to choose from ranging from modern to traditional. The average price of a couch is $2450 but can increase due to the type of style, fabric selection, and finish that is chosen.
They do sell sleeper couches with conventional mattress, which are required by law to contain flame retardants. The Company sells their furniture through an extensive list of retailers located in the United States and Canada.
Viesso
Viesso, is a modern and transitional furniture manufacturer based in Santa Monica, California, using environmentally friendly materials. The Company’s upholstery cushions are made of either natural latex, polyurethane, or a combination of down and feather, eco-friendly fabric or regular fabric, stains and sealers which contain low VOCs. You can be as green as you want to be by intermixing green elements with non-green elements.
The Company provides an online customization program that allows you to easily pick the style, fabric, coils, and legs of your piece.After you have finished customizing the program gives you a price for the piece.
An 84 inch Gente styled couch starts at $1408 and increase to $2250 if you opt for feathers in your cushions and a better spring system. However, if you choose an expensive fabric the cost of the couch can be $4000. In addition,they sell a sleeper couch with an air mattress. The cost for an 84 inch sleeper couch starts at $2225.00. The Company only sells to residents via the internet in the United States.
Other arrangements can be made with the Company for international orders. In addition, Viesso’s showroom in California has all types of models and fabric choices for those who would like to “test sit” on their couches before ordering them.
How Do you Decide Between the Three?
Some of the factors to consider are what you are willing to spend and the style you want. Perhaps you may want the heirloom quality of Furnature or the many choices of Lee Industries’ NaturalLEE Collection. Perhaps modern and clean lines of Viesso are what you crave.
Maybe, you want an eco-friendly mattress for your sleeper couch. If so, Furnature is your only choice. As you can see, all of these decisions are very personal.
Over the next couple of weeks, I will be featuring each company, in depth, with pictures. So, stay tuned.
For more information about the dangers of PVC, see the Center for Health, Environment, and Justice’s PVC: the poison plastic campaign.
For information about PDBE flame retardants, see information from Pollution in People Organization. Before you buy any furniture or mattresses, ask the manufacturer if there are any PDBE flame retardants in their products.
Las Vegas News says
January 8, 2008 at 2:21 amI guess it depends on the in-laws!! They have some nice stuff and it cost as much as regular higher end furniture. Nice find!
Las Vegas News’s last blog post..Las Vegas Monorail
Nicole says
April 9, 2017 at 5:27 pmHow do you find the furnature website. It doesn’t show up on the web.
Anna says
April 10, 2017 at 1:14 amHere is their web address http://www.furnature.com/ Anna