Me in an Eames Lounge Chair
Marshmallow Sofa - designed by George Nelson
Hayworth - view from front entrance
Opposite of upper view
Lovely Seating
Fun Chair! It swivels.
Festival of Tulips
Love the Rain! Thanks Hayworth for the umbrella.
Street sign.
The only surviving tulips.
The day started with a tour at the Herman Miller World Headquarters in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Herman Miller relies on outside designers to help develop new product. They also manufacture many classic designs by Ray and Charles Eames, George Nelson, and many others! One of the most amazing things about Herman Miller is that they are a company focused on sustainability. For instance they had a wasp problem a few years back so instead of spraying pesticide they brought in bees and after a year the wasp were gone and now they have their own honey. We were fortunate enough to get to tour through the manufacturing line for their chairs. Herman Miller does not keep stock of any of their chairs. Each item is ordered and then made and then directly shipped to the buyer of the chair. Each line has different specifications for height of seat, and so on. These specifications are accounted for in the production line. It is quite amazing! All the pieces of the chair are packaged by the manufacture in a specific way and then assembled in that same way. Anyway its hard to explain but the process is amazing! The Aaron Chair is the most popular chair and we got to see it made! It is crazy the number of chairs they make a day. We also got to see some of the original drawings done by Ray and Charles Eames for their chairs!!! A while ago they had a storage shed full of stuff and they decided to go through it before just junking it and in it they found some molds used to make some of the chairs. Wow! Herman Miller was soo good to us. After all the tours we had lunch. It was delicious! They served panini's and salad and vegetables with wonderful desserts. They gave us very awesome name tags to where while there.
Our next adventure of the day took place at Haworth World Headquarters. They are competitors with Herman Miller. It was raining so we ran into Haworth and wow! The second you get in there it is amazing!! The natural light was spectacular. I love how it was so clean and pretty. They used white and silver mainly with accents of red and wood. They were also really good to use. They provided drinks for us during a presentation. Then we went outside to see the green roof. It was raining so they gave us all umbrellas to keep! I loved the nooks they created inside the building for people to work and have break out sessions together. We toured the building and the group I was in even got to see the manufacturing line. To be honest I liked Herman Millers manufacturing line better. Then at the end of our time there we used the restroom which was wonderful. They gave us cookies and beverages and water bottles to take home. How sweet of them. They gave us name tags too.
After getting lost a bit we arrived at the Tulip Festival in Holland, Michigan. Because there had been so much rain the tulip festival turned into the stem festival because all of the petals on the tulips fell off. It was a little sad. I liked walking through this little piece of Holland.
For dinner we went to a pub like feeling place. Benae Buss and I were all for gettin us some fish and chips. Although they were not authentic they were pretty good. Differences I noticed, fries instead of french fries and tarter sauce instead of mushy peas. After we went in a few cute shops before meeting back at the vans to head back to the hotel.
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