Are you still operating without air conditioning? Yes we are, and without heat as well. It's interesting. I remember looking around one afternoon this winter when there were three of us in the store and we were working on re-launching our Web site. Every one of us was freezing — wearing scarves, two or three jackets and gloves with no fingers so we could type. Needless to say, we didn't have any customers in that day, but I wouldn't change it for the world.

How has the economy affected your business? We've already doubled our sales from last year. I'm sure a lot of that is just from being a new company but I am still amazed. We actually have a phone that rings. I thought for the longest time that it was broken.

Have the number of choices in green/sustainable home furnishings expanded over the past year? Yes, you see new products every day. Unfortunately you still see large manufacturers producing green lines, but they don't feel it's important enough to take what they've learned or implemented to all of their lines and their manufacturing process as a whole.

Any major changes? Major changes all over. We transitioned out of retail and are now manufacturing our own line of residential furniture, as well as doing custom design/build for museums, public libraries and restaurants. It was the best move we ever made. We relaunched a new Web site and are continuing to push the greenvelope. In the next six months, our goals include working with the carbonfund.org to become carbon neutral, taking the office completely off-grid, and having zero waste. We're also trying to come up with a packaging material that is better than recycled cardboard, some kind of blanket wrap the customer would want to keep and re-use.

Have you experienced any problems with the merchandise, like durability or false claims? Maybe not false, but embellished. Let's be real, salespeople will spin anything to sell a product, even if that means saying its eco-friendly or sustainable. We haven't had to discontinue based on green, but did discontinue a line because 90% of the furniture would arrive to our clients damaged. In the end we discontinued all of them because of our move to manufacturing.

How much of your revenue is generated online? Most of our sales are generated by our Web site, but the larger jobs come from talking to people about what we're doing. We don't just manufacture an eco-friendly line; we are a manufacturer that is pushing the limits, trying new things.