Aug 05, 2011
Fab Fridays: Robin Horton of Urban Gardens
Each Friday Simplifying Fabulous! presents Fab Fridays, an up-close-and-personal look at how one of our community members simplifies fabulous in their own life. Is there someone you'd like to see featured? Email your submission to info@simplifyingfabulous.com.
ABOUT Robin Horton is publisher of Urban Gardens: Unlimited Thinking for Limited Spaces, the award-winning green lifestyle and design blog showcasing fresh, innovative, and eco-friendly designs, trends, and ideas. She is also the principal and creative director of Robin Horton Design, a strategic and creative print and web design consultancy, and also co-facilitator of The Blog Workshops, creative writing/social media workshops.
RB: What are the most interesting things that you’re seeing happening in the green lifestyle and design area?
RH: Maybe it’s rise of the “staycation,” originally driven by the economic down turn, or the increasing number of individuals telecommuting from home, but the result is that people are investing more in creating outdoor living areas that extend the boundaries of their indoor spaces. Whether it’s a need for respite from our virtual worlds or just a desire for time outside, it’s no surprise that taking the indoors outside is becoming a bigger and bigger trend. People are creating outdoor spaces that function much like their indoor rooms– stylish places for lounging, dining, entertaining, and even working.
Fatboy RockCoco Chandelier
As the line between indoors and outdoors has become blurred, we see things normally found indoors, like chandeliers, in outdoor dining areas. I really love Fatboy's RockCoco chandelier, a contemporary, outdoor take on a Louis XV chandelier. There are a wide variety of outdoor fabrics and pillows available, and some, like those from Trina Turk’s collection for Schumacher, would look equally great in a formal living room. To further define exterior rooms, or separate a dining from lounging area, even the big chains like Restoration Hardware and Pottery Barn offer outdoor drapes. Herman Miller is reintroducing the Eames Aluminum Group, originally designed in 1950 for indoor-outdoor use for the Miller House, whose interior designer bemoaned the lack of available well-designed outdoor furnishings. The Miller House was ahead of its time with multiple outdoor living and dining areas, even back then blurring the distinction between indoors and out.
Upcycled wood shelf at the Shippan Designer Showhouse
I have realized that one of the greenest things one can do is keep something forever so it never ends up in a landfill. So if I have a great piece of furniture that is made well and I love it, it is going to be around for a very long time. I may slipcover it or change the pillows, but the basic piece is a keeper. Before I ever heard of the idea of "reusing", I was culling from flea markets and thrift shops. One of my favorite things is to use an object, like I did with the garden pots as pendant lamps, for a purpose other than what it was intended for.
As much as I love interesting and beautiful things, I have also become more interested in reducing the amount of stuff I have. Someone once told me they could remember when everything they owned could be carried on their back. Sometimes that sounds pretty good. Except shoes, I really like shoes and I will always have too many!
Simplifying Fabulous! with Robin Horton of Urban Gardens



Once I found a giant metal cowboy boot planter in the back of a junk shop at a roadside convenience store in Arizona. It now holds firewood and matches by the fireplace in my living room.

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