There were some neat ideas for condo living and some interesting artistic pieces. We got there fairly early in the morning and it didn't take long for the show to get really busy. With the real estate boom that we have here in Toronto, it's not surprising that there's a huge market for furnishings and other stuff for the home.
While there some really neat things there, I was floored by the pricing of the majority of items. It seems that there are a lot of people with a ton money to spend and no clue as to how what it takes to make furniture and how much it should cost. The markups on some pieces was insane. I did hear a few people asking about how some products were environmentally friendly or somehow green. One company said that they planted a tree for every furniture product that they sold. There were a bunch of companies with green sounding names like "Erth Coverings". Their main deal was that they sold natural products, but there was no mention of a closed system where they treat and recycle their waste water or if they have a solar panel bank supplementing their electricity usage. I mainly got the impression that consumers were more or less looking for an answer that said that the companies were environmentally friendly but rarely asked how.
There were some pretty neat items and some slick materials for countertops and tiling. Overall, though, I left there thinking that it would be a good idea to start a home decoration company with a truly green manufacturing cycle and some unique products...could make a lot of money. In any case, here are some of the more interesting pictures that I took:
(stuff made in China wouldn't cost a lot...these guys must have had a huge markup on their price!)
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