The American Home Furnishings Alliance (AHFA) announced Copeland Furniture to be the 2009 Sage Award winner for environmental excellence. The Sage award was launched to recognize environmental accomplishments within the home furnishings industry.

The competition was open to retail, manufacturing and supplier companies in both the furniture and bedding industries.

Copeland Furniture was honored for its "exceptionally focused" approach to sustainable business operations.

• The company holds a Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) chain of custody certificate and currently manufactures eight product groups that qualify for FSC on-product labeling.
• Wood for these collections is sourced from forests within 100 to 500 miles of the plant.
• 90% of the electricity used to power the manufacturing equipment comes from low emission sources.
• Copeland President and CEO, Tim Copeland says that the company is in the process of converting its heating plant from oil-fired hot water to wood-fired, using its own waste scrap as fuel, and reprocessing leftover scrap into wood pellets locally to fuel wood stoves.

According to AHFA's CEO Andy Counts, Copeland's ongoing process of improvement and environmental initiatives that touch every aspect of its operations, provide a clear model for other companies.

Donating furniture to Salvation Army or any other charity is always a good idea for many different reasons. But how do you determine the value of the furniture you donated for tax purposes?

Salvation Army has a page that lets you figure out the monetary value you can put on your donations. They give a minimum and maximum amount and then you can figure out where you want to place your donated furniture's value. Not surprisingly, casegoods are worth more. Bedroom sets seem to be worth the most, followed by dining room sets.

It is an option you might want to consider for furniture that's hard to get rid of. It doesn't have to be Salvation Army, it can be any charity that you choose, and if you have access to them, Furniture Banks are also an option.

Pantone just predicted that Turquoise will be the color of the year for 2010. Well, they're the global authority on color and color standards for the design industry, so they should know a thing or two.

Turquoise which sits between blue and green, is a healing color. According to the Pantone press release, "Turquoise evokes thoughts of soothing, tropical waters and a languorous, effective escape from the everyday troubles of the world, while at the same time restoring our sense of well being."

Turquoise does seem to be showing up in many places, and not just in upholstery, but let's see how we feel about it midway through next year. Color predictions, like most predictions, don't always hold true. What do you think? Does Turquoise have what it takes to be the color of the year?

Last Year's Color

Furnishing a small dining room can be a frustrating experience sometimes. In tiny rooms very little seems to fit and you have to exercise more creativity to get your small space to look, feel and function just right.

While you can make the room look larger visually relatively easily, it is more difficult to create more actual room to move around. A round dining table with a pedestal base seems to be about the most workable solution for smaller dining rooms. A 42" round table can easily seat four, and a pedestal stand instead of four legs lets the diners be seated more comfortably.

That, and picking slim profiled chairs without arms magically give you a little more space to maneuver.