My guest Emily May Bird Kroll is CEO and Founder of Ekla Home, which makes custom natural upholstered furniture. On the day of our interview, she will be launching a new natural sofa “with a design that more people can afford.” Emily has successfully designed, manufactured, and distributed custom furniture since 1992. She has created custom and contract furniture for notable interior designers, celebrities and large corporations. Emily is passionate about changing the way the furniture business works in the United States where production is notoriously wasteful, and many toxic chemicals are used. Determined to make the process of producing furniture safe for her craftsmen and clients, Emily launched EKLA HOME in 2007. The granddaughter of a furniture designer on one side, and an architectural and scrap metal recycler on the other, EKLA HOME’s approach is rooted in Emily’s DNA. A lifelong Southern California resident, Emily is at the nexus of a close beachside community that holds environmentalism as a way of life and a business model. We’ll be talking about toxic chemicals in sofas and how to avoid them by choosing a safa made with natural materials. Elka Home is no longer in business.
In addition, Leigh Anne Van Dusen, Co-Founder and General Manager of O Ecotextiles spoke about the textiles used to make Ekla Home upholstered furniture. O Ecotextiles is committed to changing the way textiles are being made by proving that it’s possible to produce luxurious, sensuous fabrics in ways that are non-toxic, ethical and sustainable. Co-founders (and sisters) Patty Grossman and Leigh Anne Van Dusen created O Ecotextiles in 2006 and the collection has garnered accolades and honors since it debuted at Decorex in 2007, where it won Best Merchandise from House & Garden magazine. In 2009, Environmental Building News and BuildingGreen named O Ecotextiles one of the top 10 Green Building Products of 2008. www.oecotextiles.com
TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
The First Affordable Natural Sofa
Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Emily May Bird Kroll
Date of Broadcast: August 14, 2013
DEBRA: Hi, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And this is Toxic Free Talk Radio where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world because there are toxic chemicals all around us in consumer products, just walking down the street, and falling from the sky, and the water we drink, and the food we eat. And sometimes listening to the news, it seems like every day, there is a new toxic chemical to worry about.
But there are many toxic-free alternatives available, many consumer products that don’t have toxic chemicals in them, many ways to remove toxic chemicals from our homes and our bodies and our schools and every place.
And we can live in a toxic-free world. It’s just a matter of each of us making choices and one by one, putting all of those choices together will have fewer and fewer toxics, and more and more health and happiness, productivity, and anything else that we want, not impeded by toxic chemical exposures.
Today, we’re going to talk about sofas. A lot of people have been asking me about sofas because of all the news about fire retardants. It has been on the news a lot in the past couple of years. There are also some new regulations going in the State of California about fire retardants.
And also, today, my guest is releasing the most affordable organic sofa I’ve ever seen. I just took a peek at her website before the show, and I didn’t see that it’s up yet. But she’s going to be telling us all about it.
But first, I want to tell you about my personal experience with sofas. I have had a toxic-free sofa for—let’s see how many years it has it been now, probably almost 30. The first toxic-free sofa I had, and let me tell you that the sofa was one of the first toxic things I got rid of in my house.
The first one that I had was, I was living at my parents’ house actually, and my mother had chosen a very modern sofa that had a back that was made out of canvass, flat, cotton canvass. And then it had pillows. And all the whole frame was on metal and it had chrome arms. And then you would put these pillows in.
And the pillows themselves were made out of all kinds of synthetic materials and probably had fire retardants on it.
So I just took all those pillows off, and I made my own big pillows out of cotton fabric, organic cotton fabric, stuffed them with organic cotton, and I had a lovely sofa.
But then, for some reason, I don’t remember why, it didn’t fit in the small places that I was living, and I just wanted a regular kind of sofa. And about 20 years ago, I decided to make my own sofa. And this was before I could go to a place and have one custom-made by somebody who has all the natural materials available to them like my guest.
And so what I did was I went to an auction, and I bought an old sofa that had a nice frame, and that had spring cushions, the old-fashioned kind. And then I took it to an upholsterer and I said strip everything off of it. And he stripped it down to the wood frame and the metal springs.
And then I got 100% natural linen upholstery fabric, and some cotton upholstery fabric. And he stuffed everything with organic cotton. And it cost me, I don’t even remember, $2000 or $3000 to have this done 20 years ago. But I can tell you that I still sit on that sofa and it still looks as beautiful as the day I got it.
And fortunately now, we have plenty of places where there are people who know exactly what they’re doing, know the materials, you have lots of choices, and they can custom-make whatever it is that you want. And there are also sofas that are already designed that you can just order.
So, I want to introduce my guest, Emily May Bird Kroll, who is the CEO and founder of Ekla Home. Hi, Emily.
EMILY MAY BIRD KROLL: Hi, Debra.
DEBRA: Thanks for being with me.
EMILY MAY BIRD KROLL: Thank you for having me.
DEBRA: Instead of me reading your bio, why don’t you tell us about your background and what led you to start doing custom-building of furniture from non-toxic and sustainable materials?
EMILY MAY BIRD KROLL: Well, I started in the furniture business in 1992. And I worked for a company that was making reproductions of 18th and 19th century farmhouse furniture. And from there, I was asked by the company to investigate upholstery, meaning sofas, that we could add to our collection of pieces.
So, I began researching upholstery, and was introduced to a manufacturer of sofas, and started the process of developing this collection for the company I was working for.
That company was then sold. And I had decided I was a little more interested in learning about the soft side of the business, meaning, the upholstery side of the business. And I went to work for the manufacturer that we were working with in the former company.
I developed a couple of designs for him and learned the process of manufacturing as well as learned about the ingredients and so forth in upholstery pieces during that period.
Shortly thereafter, I opened my own store, my own retail store, which is in Santa Monica, California. And I designed my own pieces for that store. And I originally had the original manufacturer make pieces for me for my own collection.
During the ‘90s, I became aware that the furniture industry was responsible for pretty much raping two-thirds of the world’s forests for its furniture production. And that really upset me. My family, we’re in the recycling business in Europe. And I grew up in a consciousness which involved no waste and lots of reuse. And I just was upset that our industry was responsible for such devastation.
So, I started investigating sustainable wood, recycled wood. I started working in reclaimed wood in the mid-90s as well. And I started working in alder for my [unintelligible 07:22]. And alder wasn’t really used in those days for case fits. It was considered a waste crop. But it is a sustainable crop. And it has [unintelligible 07:29]. So we started doing the wood.
And then, as the years went by, I became aware that the upholstery side of the business also was environmentally harmful in many different ways. These are the chemicals, again, the waste of the wood, et cetera.
So, I started researching in 2003—2002 or 2003—about doing a more sustainable product on the upholstery side of the business. I researched for several years. And that led me in 2005 to writing the business plan for Ekla Homes which was to create an entirely organic collection of upholstered pieces.
And then, I launched the brand in 2007 to get a little bit of funding to do the project. The business started in 2007, but we launched our first collection in 2008.
DEBRA: When I read that your core values on your website that they are very deep, I liked them very much. Would you tell us your core values, so that I don’t read them?
EMILY MAY BIRD KROLL: Well, I would say that it’s really important that we—one thing is we’re making these pieces that are healthy for consumers, but also, again, in our industry, the workshops. Unfortunately, many of the people that are working in a furniture workshop have been affected by the carcinogenic chemicals that they work with every day in making conventional pieces.
So many of the guys that have been working for many years in the business, their hands are chewed away from the toxic chemicals that they had to work with, and cutting fabrics, and handling fabrics, and handling foams. Many of them have respiratory problems.
I have one builder that I’ve been doing wood with for years who I honestly think has been affected by the vapor he’s inhaled because it’s just not as clear as he was a number of years ago when dealing with him.
DEBRA: We need to take a break, but we’ll be right back and we’ll talk more about this. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guest today is Emily May Bird Kroll, CEO and founder of Ekla Home. We’re going to talk about sofas and other furniture.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guest today is Emily May Bird Kroll, CEO and founder of Ekla Home, where they make sofas, chairs and upholstered bed frames, and anything else?
EMILY MAY BIRD KROLL: Ottomans, pretty much anything that can be upholstered.
DEBRA: Yes, basically upholstered furniture. So Emily, tell us more. You were starting to talk about the chemicals that workers are being exposed to, and also then the consumer would be exposed to those same chemicals, although the workers would be exposed to more of them. But tell us about some of those chemicals, and how they might affect our health.
EMILY MAY BIRD KROLL: Do you have Leigh Anne on the line, our on-house chemist?
DEBRA: She’s on the line, yes. Is it time to bring her in?
EMILY MAY BIRD KROLL: Yes, I think she’s the best one to—because she has the most in-depth knowledge of the effects of the chemicals themselves.
DEBRA: Okay, Leigh Anne. Hi.
LEIGH ANNE VAN DUSEN: Hi.
DEBRA: Are you there?
LEIGH ANNE VAN DUSEN: I am here.
DEBRA: Emily, would you introduce Leigh Anne, please?
EMILY MAY BIRD KROLL: Leigh Anne Van Dusen has a company called O Exotextiles, and O Ecotextiles is our exclusive supplier of fabric. They work to the highest standard for health and sustainability in the production of the fabrics that they create.
Leigh Anne and her sister, Patty, both have backgrounds in chemistry and has worked tirelessly to develop their collection of helpful fabrics.
DEBRA: So Leigh Anne, tell us about the toxic chemicals that you’ve learned about that are in textiles.
LEIGH ANNE VAN DUSEN: Well, we have been studying since we started, which is about the same time Emily started her company, maybe a year or two earlier, but we started doing the same thing—learning about what is involved with textile production.
What we found is we were horrified by the chemicals used in textile production because they include some of what I would consider most dangerous chemicals that are used—lead, PBDE’s (which are the fire retardants we hear so much about now), but also alkylphenol ethoxylates (APEO’s) which are endocrine disruptors, and formaldehyde is used a lot. I think I mentioned lead, but mercury and lots of the heavy metals are found in the dye stuff.
So, the fabrics—a finished fabric is, by weight, about 25%. This is the fabric made of natural fibers. It’s about 25% synthetic chemical. So it’s really important that you know what those chemicals are or that you have a third party certification that warrants that your fabric is safe because your skin is the biggest organ of your body and it’s busy inputting all these chemicals, not to mention the fact that they [unintelligible 13:32] they saw into the air, and then you can breathe them in. And some of them outgas, the ones that, at ambient air temperature, those that evaporate.
So there are lots of chemicals used in textile processing that are just not good for us. And we see a lot of times, fabrics that are advertised as being made of organic cotton. And that’s fabulous. We really support the organic agriculture.
But if you think of organic apple sauce, if someone started with organic apple, and then added red dye #2, and preservative chemical emulsifiers, the final product couldn’t be called organic apple sauce.
DEBRA: No, it couldn’t. Could you tell us some more about this because I think that there’s an assumption that if something is organic, then people are going to handle that material in a less toxic way, all the way through the line. And it sounds like you’re saying that’s not necessarily true with organic cotton.
LEIGH ANNE VAN DUSEN: Organic cotton is just that. It’s the fiber. But there are a lot of steps in textile processing. That fiber has to go to a mill where it’s spun into yarn. And then it goes to the weaving mill where it’s put on a loom, and they have about six or eight steps […] that involve washing with detergents, bleaching. Almost every natural fiber has to be bleached before it’s dyed. And then it’s dyed.
And then there’s finishes applied often. And the finishes, for example, every permanent press finish has formaldehyde in it. It’s a formaldehyde resin.
And so there are many steps after the fiber part where the chemicals are introduced. So even though you start with organic cotton, and a lot of manufacturers advertise their organic cotton sheets or whatever it is they’re advertising, that’s just the first step. And, as I said, it’s great to start with organic cotton, but if they’re processed conventionally, and you aren’t paying attention to the chemicals that are used in the dyes, and the optical whiteners and all that stuff, then you end up with a fabric that’s 25% by weight synthetic chemicals, many of which are not good for you.
DEBRA: Well, that explains why sometimes I’ve looked at—once I needed to buy a prop for a TV show, and I wanted to show an organic sheet. So I just went down and I bought a sheet that was labeled organic cotton. And I took it out of the package, and it had this sheen on it, and this finish. And I thought this doesn’t look like an organic sheet at all.
And that explains that because that isn’t always—you don’t always get on the label. In fact, most of the time you don’t get on the label what’s been done to the fabric, what’s been done to the fiber. You just get what is the type of fiber that’s used in the making of it.
LEIGH ANNE VAN DUSEN: I was just going to say the same is true for the latex on the market, which are the films used in supposedly eco-furniture. Natural latex in the U.S. can be a blend of petroleum product, as well as other chemical binders, and can be labeled as natural latex, the wools and the cottons as well in the actual eco-furniture pieces.
Again, as a consumer, one has to dig beneath the surface, and request documentation of those items that they’re purchasing.
DEBRA: Good. We’re going to talk about this more after the break. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and we’re here with Emily Kroll from Ekla Home, and Leigh Anne from—I’m sorry. I don’t have it in front of me.
We’ll be back in a moment.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guest today is Emily Kroll from Ekla Home and also Leigh Anne Van Dusen of O Ecotextiles. And let me just give you their websites. Ekla Home is E-K-L-A Home dot com. EklaHome.com. E-K-L-A.
Emily, does Ekla have some meaning? I got it.
EMILY MAY BIRD KROLL: It’s just my initials.
DEBRA: Emily Kroll LA. Now, I got it. I thought maybe it was some Swedish word for extreme [cross-talking 00:18:58] or something.
EMILY MAY BIRD KROLL: It’s just my initials.
DEBRA: Okay, so I got it now. O Ecotextiles is O and then Ecotextiles.com. And they’re in Seattle, Washington. I haven’t been to that website yet, but I will absolutely be going there.
Before we go on, I just want to read the homepage at Ekla Home because it’s just so beautiful. It says exactly what the furniture is about. It says, “At Ekla Home, we strive to make the least toxic furniture on the planet. Our organic collection consists of sofas, chairs and upholstered bed frames made with pure, non-toxic ingredients. Each piece is made with certified organic natural latex, certified organic wool, and certified organic cotton barrier cloth. Our fabric collection is exclusively supplied by O Exotextiles, and all meet the Global Organic Textile Standard for sustainable, non-toxic textiles. Each piece is made from FSC-certified wood, non-toxic adhesives, recycled steel springs, and zero VOC finishes. Best of all, we use no chemical fire retardants. Our entire collection is handmade in Southern California with love.”
And I can’t think of any set of standards that would be better than that. I think you’ve done a great job, and beautiful designs.
So tell us more about, either of you, can tell us more about how you make your furniture, about these extraordinary materials.
EMILY MAY BIRD KROLL: Well, I can tell you that these extraordinary materials are, unfortunately, very, very expensive and it’s been a constant challenge for me to really get the pieces out in the world which my goal is to get these pieces into people’s homes rather than toxic pieces that affect them.
And so I’ve had such a challenge in trying to figure out ways to make these pieces more affordable for people. Unfortunately, that latex is a commodity and the commodity is exchanged, and its price fluctuates with the world market’s demand on it as a product. And so we have to absorb the price fluctuation that generally has gone up because there’s a greater demand for rubber for tires, in the developing parts of the world.
And so it’s a constant battle to try to pass along savings to people. It’s the hardest thing really as a manufacturer to try to—I would love to be a non-profit organization but I’d be out of business because I couldn’t pay for my own living expenses, and we really are working on the tightest margin as possible, to even call ourselves a for-profit business, just so we can get these pieces out in the world.
DEBRA: Well, I think that this is really an important thing to talk about because it seems that in the world today that people have much more attention on price than how much something costs, or how much money they can save. Their decisions are more money-driven than they are driven by supporting their health or the environment.
And I can understand that because we’re in a tight economy.
But at the same time, it’s really important to support businesses like yours because you’re the future. I mean, you’re the present. You’re here right now, offering this product. But this is the standard for the future. If we want to hope to have life on earth, these are the kinds of products that everybody should be using.
And I know for myself, I’m not an independently wealthy person, but I always am willing to spend the money. I don’t know if you’ve heard me at the beginning of the show, I was talking about many years ago, having a sofa custom-upholstered. And it was $2000 or $3000 then. And it’s not that I have $2000 or $3000 that I can just write a check every day for all kinds of expensive products.
But it’s so important to me to have non-toxic things in my home that I make my decisions about what it is that I want, and then I see how I can come up with the money for them.
Right now, there’s something that I want, and I’m looking around my house, and I’m asking myself, what do I not need anymore? What can I sell? And turn that unused item into some money, so I can buy this non-toxic thing.
And we can also simplify our lives. There are many ways that we can fill dollars from here and there, get an extra job, whatever it is. I have consistently made these kinds of decisions in my life to come up with the money to be able to pay for things.
I appreciate very much that you’re looking at how can you make it as inexpensive as possible. But I also want people to understand, as you said, these are very expensive materials, and they are more expensive. But look, I’ve probably—how many thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars have I saved on medical bills.
When I look at something that cost $4000 or $5000, I just ask myself, “How much does cancer cost?” And I know how much it costs because I know people who have cancer, and it’s tens of thousands of dollars.
EMILY MAY BIRD KROLL: Certainly because many of these trends that we’re discussing like eating better, and obviously, the furniture issue that I addressed, are trends that have started and have taken grasp in the United States.
And I’ve gone to Europe, well, there is now, with regard to the environment, but in my industry, there hasn’t been much interest in sustainability in the furniture industry. And I think that it’s just the point that you’re making. In the United States, we don’t have nationalized health care, and God forbid, anyone gets ill, the cost of illness in this country can completely wipe out a family financially.
And so I think we are more aware because the need to stay healthy in the present, and in the coming years, to avoid, high health care cost. I think that’s constantly on one’s mind.
DEBRA: It is constantly on my mind. We need to take another break, but when we come back, we’ll talk more with Emily Kroll of Ekla Home, and about her new, more affordable sofa. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. We’ll be right back.
DEBRA: Okay, we had a little technical problem there. I’m hoping you can hear me now. This is Debra Lynn Dadd at Toxic Free Talk Radio. And I’m here with Emily and Leigh Anne—Emily Kroll from Ekla Home, and Leigh Anne Van Dusen from O Exotextiles.
So Emily, would you tell me—you went through this whole process and worked very hard to come up with this more affordable design. Tell me some of the problems that you ran into, and some of the solutions you came up with.
EMILY MAY BIRD KROLL: Well, it’s a case of raw materials and laborers. Again, we’re producing our pieces in the United States. And I just want to mention something that in the 90’s, you said you spent a couple of thousand dollars to have your piece re-upholstered. In the 90’s, a mid-range sofa, because I sold things at retail, a mid-range sofa in our industry went between $2000 and $3000.
Now, when the Chinese came in, and literally dumped, their currency manipulation to get products into our country, they dumped furniture into this country. And they were selling, undercutting our entire industry, to gain the market.
And so they were selling sofas at $500.
And these are the same pieces that, again, the quality wasn’t the same, but they flooded the market with these types of items.
And what has happened is that these types of things are still on the market. You see on television ads for an entire sofa, chair, loveseats, set, at $599. And you think, how on earth can that piece be made?
It’s not only the labor that’s less expensive, but they’re actually manipulating currency to do so.
So people’s consciousness has changed about what things cost. And the majority of the manufacturers did go off shore when this happened, and they started producing their pieces in China. So we even have American manufacturers that had been producing all over Asia now for a decade or so, and these are pieces that you see on the market here from the big manufacturers, American manufacturers that maybe $1000, $1500 each.
The pieces look great, and those people would be happy to have the pieces in their homes should they not have chemicals in them. But it’s literally shifted people’s consciousness about what things cost.
So we’re actually producing still in Los Angeles. I’ve always produced in Los Angeles. We’re producing in Los Angeles. We’re paying a living wage. So we have laborer’s cost involved in making these pieces, as well as the raw materials’ cost.
So what we had to do in value engineering the pieces was to try to make the piece that was quicker to make than one of our more complicated pieces, thus, reducing labor cost per piece in creating the pieces.
We also had to look at the materials used and how we could—I wouldn’t say eliminate, but design a piece that was structurally sound while using less material than our 300-pound sofas that we’re making now, the piece on the main collection.
So we’re calling our new piece, we’re calling it the Athens sofa, which is the piece that’s democratized, that everyone can afford. And we changed construction in the base. We’ve done, basically, a one-step type of upholstery that can be sewn, and pulled onto the piece, and upholstered more quickly than our more complicated pieces. So we’ve, and again, streamlined the materials. The piece, it’s an armless sofa. Imagine a futon, but it’s nicer-looking than a futon, but it gets the job done for a piece to sit on, that people can lay on, sleep on, watch TV on, but has no toxic chemicals in it.
So it’s taken a lot of work. And again, it’s not a piece that is $500 or $1000. It’s still coming in just under $2000, but that’s literally the best that we can do between value engineering, making pieces in the States, and raw materials.
DEBRA: Well, I think that that is actually a reasonable price. It may be more than people want to spend, but I put an announcement of this show in my newsletter yesterday, and a gentleman went to your website, and I said very clearly in the announcement that you are going to be releasing this new sofa today.
And he wrote me back and he said, “Oh, all the sofas cost so much money. Can’t you get them to do a sofa that costs $3000 instead of $4000, $5000,” whatever they are.
And I wrote back and I said, “Yes, there’s one for $2000. It will be available tomorrow.”
EMILY MAY BIRD KROLL: Actually, I think he may have been confused when looking at our pricing because our pricing is all from $2000 to, probably the sectionals are more obviously, because it’s two sofas in one, but we do have sofas certainly just under $3000, and then averaging to about $3,500.
DEBRA: He was looking for a sectional.
EMILY MAY BIRD KROLL: Well, the sectionals, people have to remember that it’s two sofas in one, so it’s double—double the labor, double the materials, when making those pieces.
DEBRA: Now, these are all custom-made, yes?
EMILY MAY BIRD KROLL: Well, they’re all handmade to order, so we have the line that’s shown in the photograph, on the site. And we make those pieces, and their prices are on the pricelist grid. And we can also make custom pieces for people.
So if people see something in the conventional world of furniture that they like, a style, we can generally make that piece in organic materials. There are a few pieces that are impossible, but other than that, we can make pretty much anything.
But otherwise, they’re handmade to order, each piece.
DEBRA: Good. So I don’t see the picture of the new Athens on the site.
EMILY MAY BIRD KROLL: It was supposed to be up last night. Our web guy was having some technical issues. And so I would anticipate it being up later today, or I’m hoping—I hope today or tomorrow.
DEBRA: I know what it’s like with these technical issues.
EMILY MAY BIRD KROLL: As we all know. Unfortunately, you plan for the best, and it’s production, you’re going to have a glitch somewhere. So it’s due up.
DEBRA: So anybody who is looking for it, you can look for it tomorrow online. And it probably should be there. You can also go to the website EklaHome.com, and you can e-mail them and tell Emily that you’re interested in it, and when it’s up. She can probably let you know or give you some information about it. You can also call them, and they may even be able to make something for you custom with fabrics that you are interested in, or whatever.
This is a company that is dedicated to having non-toxic sofas with organic materials and no chemical fire retardants.
Thanks so much for being with me today, Emily and Leigh Anne also. I really admire what it is that you’re doing, and I appreciate your being with me.
LEIGH ANNE VAN DUSEN: Thank you so much, Debra.
EMILY MAY BIRD KROLL: Thank you for having us.
DEBRA: You’re welcome. You’ve been listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. You can go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com, and learn more about the upcoming guests. And also, you can listen to the archives of all the guests that have ever been on the show.
You could listen to this show again if you want to. And if you’ve enjoyed those, please tell your friends and family and neighbors and anybody that you would like to know more about how to live toxic-free because it really is, each of us, learning to live toxic-free, and making those toxic-free choices that is going to create a toxic-free world for all of us.
I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio.
