New York City and, in fact, sharesmany of the same dealers. It is alsoa fully charitable endeavor, whichcontributes to its integrity, and isdeeply supported by a committedlocal audience.”

Podos and show manager Ka-leene Kenning make up the paidstaff, a testament to the success ofthe volunteer team that has beenin charge since the show started in1981.

Podos credits her predecessorin the job, Toby Rose, who was onthe enterprise organization’sboard and then volunteered as itsdirector for 25 years.

“Toby is still an invaluable helpto me with her advice” during thistransitional year, says Podos, who

By Nancy Davis KhoSpecial to The Chronicle

The San Francisco Fall An-tiques Show is displaying amodern sensibility this

year, with a special exhibition fea-turing classics of early 20th centu-ry design.

The show, which opens Thurs-day, has a paid professional stafffor the first time, a reflection ofthe stature that it is gaining. Lastyear it made the Robb Report’s listof Top Ten International Art andAntiques Fairs, and it is one of on-

ly two major fully charitable an-tique shows in the country. HouseSpeaker Nancy Pelosi and herhusband, Paul, longtime support-ers, are the honorary chairs.

The event is a benefit for En-terprise for High School Students,a citywide school-to-work youthdevelopment agency that helpsstudents find jobs and trainingand explore careers.

Nearly 70 dealers specializingin decorative and fine arts fromthe United States and Europe areexpected to participate, includingreturning exhibitors Axel Ver-voordt, B.B. Steinitz and RichardPhilp.

According to Lisa Beth Podos,executive director, “The show istantamount in quality to any in

1928 coppervase by theSwiss-bornJean Dunand.

This year’s Fall Antiques Show highlights early 20th century designsSan Francisco FallAntiques ShowWhen: Thursday throughSunday

Where: Festival Pavilion, Fort Mason Center, MarinaBoulevard at Buchanan Street,San Francisco

Hours: 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday-Saturday; noonto 6 p.m. Sunday

Tickets: $15

Preview Party Benefit Gala:tonight, $200 per person

Information: www.sffas.org;(415) 989-9019

Benefit event gainsinternational stature

1 ANTIQUES: Page G2

HOMEABCD | 10.24.2007 | Section G o o o

Garden

The couch legs or armsCould be finished in a lacquer that releasesvolatile organic compounds, or VOCs, that the American Lung Association reports can irritate eyes, skin and lungs and cause headaches, nausea and even liver and kidney damage. Or, could be painted with a substance containing benzene, a carcinogen that can emit knock-out fumes.

The couch frameCould be made of pressed wood emitting formaldehyde fumes.These can cause cancer “and other adverse health effects,”according to the California Air Resources Board.

The upholsteryMight have been treated for stain and water resistance with a finish containing formaldehyde and also perfluorooctanoic acid, considered by the Environmental Protection Agency to be a likely human carcinogen.

The upholstery dyeMight contain chemicals including benzidine, a known carcinogen, or hydrazine, a probable carcinogen with a range of adverse health effects.

Cornersof the couchCould be glued with a product containing ethylene oxide, a probable carcinogen that can also cause brain and nerve malfunctions.

Is that new sofa making you sick?

The couch cushionsMight be filled with polyurethane foam made before 2006 that contains flame-retardant polybromi-nated diphenyl ethers, which are now bannedin California for their potential health effects.

It’s not just all that TV viewing that could be harmful to couch potatoes’health — it could be the couch as well. Emissions from some substances used to build furniture provoke immediate, acute reactions in some people with chemical sensitivities, but even emissions that go unnoticed can present chronic risks from long-term exposure. Here’s a sample.

Attack of thekiller furniture

Labels, certification could bring a breath of fresh airto consumers who can’t tolerate the toxic emissions

By Susan FornoffChronicle Staff Writer

Laura Ingram rarely buys anything new, but last spring the 58-year-old Oakland landlordsprang for 16 feet of new oak bookcases to line the walls of her backyard studio-office.

“There was no problem in the showroom, when I was standing there with huge stacksof shelves,” she said. “But when the shelves arrived, they provoked such a violent al-lergic reaction in me after delivery that the vendor had to come and get them the next

day and put them on a loading dock for three weeks to off-gas.”The bookcases came back, and Ingram paid a carpenter to install them and a helper to move 35

boxes of books. Still, her chest would hurt, her lips would swell, she’d get confused and feel as if shehad the flu.

So the furniture sat in her yard for three more months while she waited for the chemical odor todissipate. It didn’t. The vendor finally returned Ingram’s money and took the bookcases away.

“This was my attempt to spiff up my environment,” Ingram said. “Now, I’d be extremely waryand want every certificate in the world.”

The problem for Ingram and others who are growing increasingly sensitized to indoor airpollutants is that the certificate doesn’t exist, and the furniture industry resists the notion oflabeling its wares. Consumers can read a list of the ingredients in their cornflakes and a summaryof what nutrients they contain, but good luck trying to find out what’s in the new set of bedroomfurniture we spend eight hours with every night.

The store owner concluded that it was some chemical in the lacquer that made Ingram sick.Lacquers can contain high levels of solvents that release volatile organic compounds, or VOCs,

that the American Lung Association reports can irritate eyes, skin and lungs and causeheadaches, nausea and even liver and kidney damage.

Kirk Saunders, a finish specialist at EcoHome Improvement, guess-es it was formaldehyde off-gassing from pressed wood. Emissions

from urea formaldehyde — “which is really, really bad foryou, and is so ubiquitous in an urban environment,”

Saunders said — can cause cancer “and other ad-verse health effects,” according to the California

Air Resources Board.If it had been a couch Ingram hadbought, potential irritants would have

multiplied. The upholstery might havebeen treated for stain and water resis-

tance with a finish containingmore formaldehyde and also per-

Illustration by John Blanchard / The Chronicle

1 FURNITURE: Page G4

I thought I’d plant my front yard,with flowers, shrubs and trees.A little bit of country, to pleasethe birds and bees.But someone couldn’t stand it,they called the inspector in.Anything but just plain grass, is ahorticultural sin.

— Jean Dickson, with apologiesto Ricky Nelson

Karen Baumann, an East Sac-ramento schoolteacher andmother of 11-year-old

twins, is an unlikely rebel. Shedidn’t set out to change the citylandscaping code. All she wantedto do was grow some vegetables.

When the trouble started threeyears ago, her tiny front yard was

full of tomatoes, cucumbers,squash, eggplants, bell peppers.Nothing tall: no corn, no trellisedbeans.

“No one ever said anything,”Baumann recalled. “There wereno nasty notes, no snide com-ments.”

But someone — she’s still notsure who — made an anonymouscomplaint to the Department ofCode Enforcement. Out of theblue came a demand to removeher vegetables or face an $800fine. Her garden had beendeemed a public nuisance. “I wasshocked because I didn’t know itwas against the law,” she said.“And I was angry they had thepower to tell me to rip out whatwas in my yard.”

What happened to Karen Bau-mann was not an isolated event.More homeowners are abandon-ing the traditional front lawn forless orthodox planting. Often sus-

tainability, food security or theVictory Gardens of World War IIare invoked. The informal move-ment has already inspired a book,“Food Not Lawns,” by HeatherFlores. Artist and architect Fritz

Karen Baumann

Karen Baumann fought City Hall to keep vegetables in the frontyard of her East Sacramento home.

Garden warrior uproots restrictive policyRon Sullivan

and Joe EatonThe Dirt

1 DIRT: Page G6

Unlikely rebel wins change in code toallow more edibles

Green Seal and Greenguard, have zeroedin on components (with Green Seal test-ing paints, adhesives and other materialsused in the making of furniture) and onoffice/contract furniture (Greenguard istesting and certifying a long list of brandsof furniture for meeting standards ofVOCs, formaldehyde and other indoor airemissions).

“The residential furniture industry hasbeen slow thus far adopting standards forindoor air quality,” said Smith of Green-guard. “It is something that is very prob-lematic for them — not so much for thecost of testing, but for the need to makechanges in their formulations.”

Smith said that there are two ways afurniture-maker can receive Greenguardcertification for a product that has ex-posed particleboard: Switch from formal-dehyde to another (“slightly more expen-sive”) binder, or seal the particleboard inlaminate or some other coating. So far,architects shooting for high ratings fromLEED (that’s Leadership in Energy andEnvironmental Design, a certificationprogram run by the U.S. Green BuildingCouncil) have driven the office/contractfurniture manufacturers to make chang-es; of course there are also standards forschool furniture, because children areconsidered at risk.

“But in the home,” Smith said, “furni-ture is one of the three or four things weshould be most concerned about,” alongwith carpets, adhesives and paints.

Formaldehyde emissions levels havedropped in recent years — though try tell-ing that to someone doing a kitchen orinstalling 13 feet of shelves. The Califor-

fluorooctanoic acid, considered by theEnvironmental Protection Agency to be alikely human carcinogen. It might havebeen dyed with chemicals including ben-zidine, a carcinogen, and filled with poly-urethane foam made before 2006 andcontaining flame-retardant polybromi-nated diphenyl ethers, which are nowbanned in California for their potentialhealth effects.

The EPA has a list of 188 air toxics (re-ferred to by some as HAPs, hazardous airpollutants), and has assessed and classi-fied 32 of those. Benzene, a carcinogenthat can emit knock-out fumes, is a sol-vent that has been commonly used formaking resins, paints and dyes. Ethyleneoxide, a probable carcinogen that can alsocause brain and nerve malfunctions, hasbeen used in polyurethane foam and ad-hesives. Hydrazine, a chemical used intextile dyes, is a probable carcinogen witha range of adverse health effects, and vinylchloride, used in the making of some fur-niture, is a carcinogen that can cause liverdamage with chronic exposure.

Furniture, the EPA’s “Introduction toIndoor Air Quality” states, can releasepollutants “more or less continuously,”producing immediate effects such as eye,nose and throat irritation, headaches anddizziness that can be most intense rightafter the furniture comes off the assemblyline and then seem to dissipate. But evenfor those without immediate violent re-actions such as Ingram’s, there can belong-term effects, such as respiratory andheart ailments and cancer.

“I might feel nothing now, but I mightbe at risk later of respiratory issues, cancerand so on,” said Carl Smith, CEO ofGreenguard, which tests emissions fromnew products seven days after unwrap-ping them. “You don’t get cancer justfrom walking into the room.”

“Only a small number of the 80,000chemicals registered with the EPA havebeen tested for harmful effects,” saidRowena Finegan, owner of San Francis-co’s Eco-terric (a green home furnishingsstore) and a specialist in Bau-biologie, thestudy of the effects of the built environ-ment on human health. “I’m sure we allsuffer from stuffed noses and achinessthat’s all due to chemicals.”

It is possible to find furniture that ischemical free and made of all-natural ma-terial; Finegan has partnered with CiscoBrothers to create residential furniturethat uses only sustainable wood frames,pure latex foam and pure wool batting.Natural Sense makes foam from tree sap.Columbia Forest Products has replacedformaldehyde in its pressed-wood prod-

ucts with soy-based and cost-competitivePureBond, which could revolutionize theubiquitous plywood and particleboard(see your kitchen cabinets for examplesand a Federal Emergency ManagementAgency trailer for extremes) and evenMDF, or medium-density fiberboard,which appears in many expensive piecesof furniture as a veneer because it tends tobe less flawed than natural wood.

“We’re doing low-VOC lacquer, a low-fume urea formaldehyde, we’ve madegreat strides in reducing formaldehydes,VOCs, HAPs,” said Bill Perdue, the vicepresident of environmental affairs,health, safety and standards for the Amer-ican Home Furnishings Alliance. “I guesspart of what’s happened is we have nottold our story very well.”

The High Point, N.C., trade grouplaunched its Enhancing Furniture’s Envi-ronmental Culture program in 1999,prompted partly by increasing regulation(much of it in California, much of it glob-al) and also by growing public awarenessof environmental issues. Now it is part-nering on a new launch, the SustainableFurniture Council, which has set out toestablish an “eco-label” for furniture.

“We’re in the process of developing ahangtag that customers can see,” Perduesaid. “It’s been to the detriment of our in-dustry that we haven’t gotten the wordout.”

The Sustainable Furniture Council,more than 100 members strong after onlyone year, announced its standards for cer-tification at the High Point FurnitureMarket this month. Meanwhile, two re-spected third-party standards, that of

nia Air Resources Board has taken aim aturea formaldehyde and established regu-lations that by 2012 “will set a standard forthe entire world,” Perdue said. He and hisgroup succeeded in removing from theregulations a requirement that manufac-turers test and label their furniture beforesending it to retailers, but there will bethird-party certification by the board.

“Woods shipped through Californiawill be clearly marked, and the box youbuy at Ikea should be clearly labeled, andeverybody throughout the process will beheld responsible for it,” said Dimitri Stan-ich, spokesman for the board, whichadopted the new regulations in April and,barring an industry challenge, will beginimplementing them in tiers starting in2009. “Once these regulations are imple-mented, they will be the most health-pro-tective in the country.”

“Phase 2,” Perdue said, “will set a stan-dard for the entire world. I would antici-pate that to meet Phase 2 compliance lev-els, we’ll have to move away from ureaformaldehyde altogether.”

As to other chemicals, Perdue said,“We think down the road there may besome type of certification for residentialfurniture.” He’s joined the U.S. GreenBuilding Council’s committee develop-ing LEED certification for residential fur-niture.

But, beyond certification and a stampof approval, where is the label that merelylists the components of a product and letsthe consumer make an informed choiceabout what to inhale from the breakfasttable besides the cornflakes?

“We’re where food was 15 or 20 yearsago — now there are labels,” said VictoriaSchomar, principal of the Green Built En-vironments design firm, who gave a de-sign seminar at the San Francisco Furni-ture Mart’s Live Green, Live Well showlast month. “We’re not there yet with fur-niture.”

“Most furniture companies probablydon’t know what’s in their furniture,” saidSaunders of EcoHome Improvement.

Indeed, one furniture manufacturer

What’s in furniture? It’s enough to make you sick.1 FURNITUREFrom Page G1

Laura Ingram

New oak bookcases were placed outside for months by Laura Ingram, who suf-fered a violent allergic reaction that she attributes to the wood’s chemical odor.

G4 ABCD PN WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2007o o o

1 The California Air Resources Board recommends avoiding products that emit“significant amounts of formaldehyde or other gaseous pollutants.” These in-clude “some types of plywood and particleboard.”

1 If you want new furniture from a store, tell sales reps you’re looking for furni-ture low in VOCs. They probably won’t know what you’re talking about, but ifenough people ask them, they’ll start asking store owners and manufacturers.

1 Check Greenguard and Green Seal, two independent and impartial nonprofittesters, for lists of the kind of furniture you’re looking for. New items are certifiedevery day. (www.greenguard.org, www.greenseal.org)

1 Remember that price isn’t necessarily a reflection of purity, one way or theother — flat-box furniture marketer Ikea has some of the world’s highest environ-mental standards, while very expensive furniture could contain large quantitiesof medium-density fiberboard to achieve perfect-looking veneers.

1 Ask the manufacturer or distributor to air out the product for a few weeksbefore it comes to your home. Then, let the product sit outside or in the garagefor a while, if possible, or make sure it’s in a well ventilated space inside.

1 Consider purchasing solid wood furniture that’s unfinished and thereforeshould contain only the small amount of formaldehyde that occurs naturally inwood. Then, finish it or have it finished and/or painted in low- or no-VOC stains,paints or lacquers.

1 Avoid upholstery that has been treated to resist stains and water — or look forNano-Tex, a new technology that attaches molecules to fibers without coatingthem.

1 Consider buying used furniture, which may no longer be emitting, or antiques.

1 The old-fashioned way to make sure your new furniture comes without unde-sirable chemicals: Have it made to your specifications by a local artisan.

— Susan Fornoff

Cures fortoxic furniture

1 FURNITURE: Page G5

Dining Tables

Bookcases

1 3 th ANNUAL FALL SALE 3 DAYS ONLY! OCT 26 TH , 27 TH & 28 TH

47” Four Poster Table was $ 425 Now $ 21 2 50

Media Centers Beds

30-50% OFF All Other Stock!

50% OFF All Teak Garden Furniture!

2919 Seventh Street Berkeley , CA 94710

510.848.3575

1848 Fourth Street San Rafael, CA 94901

415.453.0345

Special Sale Hours 9am–9pm

Furniture Made From Recycled Wood. www.thewoodenduck.com

Adirondack Chair was $ 415 Now $ 207 50

Eye Bench, 5ft. was $ 450 Now $ 225

Old Folding Side Chair was $ 1 25 Now $ 62 50

4931

4840

03

FURNITURE

50%–

7 5 % OFF!

• Outdoor Kitchens

• Teak, Wrought Iron, Aluminum

• Largest Selection in Bay Area

THE COMPLETE BACKYARD 1600 Duane Ave, Santa Clara

40 8 -748- 8 1 00

As Seen on KRON 4 TV

P A T I O

CALL TODAY FOR A FREE IN-HOME ESTIMATE

FINAL

WEEKS 0F

SALE!

THE DRAPERY FACTORY Serving the Bay Area Since 1980 • Head Office: 80 Tanforan, SSF

OCTOBER SALE

1 -800-63 7 -2731

On select fabrics All New Fabrics Available

Great Prices On Top Treatments

On Custom Draperies & Window Coverings

Our Staff has a combined 100 years of experience designing, manufacturing, and installing custom window coverings. The Owner, A.D. Brown, is the Author of three books on window coverings.

• Custom Draperies • Valances, Swags

and Top Treatments • Roman Shades

Example Custom Draperies For every 100 " of width x 85 " of length is . . . . . . . . .

$ 42 5 For Sheers 100 " of width x 85 " of length is . . . . . . . . .

$ 32 5 Prices Reflect Discounts. Offer Ends 10/31 /07

All Products Custom Made For Your Home!

DON’T WAIT! At These Prices, Quantity & Selection Won’t Last!

ROMAN SHADES

60% OFF

Slat Back Balloon Austrian