Because we're a small business, we work on a small scale. We think about every aspect of our work and try to bring an eco conscious ethos to it. We love what we do, and want to keep doing it for a long time.
Our Work Space
We run our business from our home... we commute from our bedroom to the workshop in our garden. It's peaceful and messy and keeps our business simple. We won't move our business away from our home; we love creating this little wooden bubble of life for ourselves.
We're setup to work with a lot of natural light; we have power management schemes for our machines and appliances; we built our own extraction units to filter any fumes and to reduce noise pollution; and we never overheat our rooms.
Our Materials
We make small batch orders with small batch wood. When we need it, we nip half a mile round the corner to Raymond who supplies our bigger pieces. We buy what we need locally, directly from those who cut it in local woods. It's a little more expensive for us, but we know we're fortunate to have contacts like this.
We buy our other wood from single source family-run sawmills, and keep our range to a minimum so we have little waste. We know the quality of our wood and only order what we need.
Working in small batches does mean we don't have huge stockpiles of products and at times can mean we only have limited ranges, but we think this is a fair trade-off for being a bit kinder to the Earth.
Any other materials we need, we try to buy local, or from small businesses that are eco-conscious too. We've got a great little network now of some really cool people who are doing incredible things to help save the planet.
Our stationary is all made from recycled paper too, and we work towards 100% paperless every chance we can.
Our Waste
We have so little waste, that we don't avail of the government issued business waste disposal schemes; we don't need them!
We save up all our off-cuts of larger wood to use to heat our house; but we don't have much so it takes a long time. Since the wood we use is such good quality there's so few bits that we discard as unusable; and since we small-batch-make, we always use what we cut. Every scrap of smaller wood we can use we will...anything that can't be used for products gets recycled for packaging or included with the bigger firewood.
Since we keep our aesthetic consistent and simple, we don't use a huge range of wood finishes. Of those finishes, we only use natural oils. And since we use such a small range, there's a lot less wastage.
Our Delivery
We're proud to be part of the packaging re-use cycle. We actively gather used packaging and use it when possible. Our wood supplier, Raymond, collects any finished-with packaging from his work and keeps it aside for us. Currently we use packaging materials from over 32 different workmen who gather their packaging up and bring it to him, for us.
All our other packaging is recyclable and no plastic when we can avoid it. Any plastic we have to use is from recycled plastic and is again recyclable. We look forward to the day when an affordable alternative that can be widely composted is available.
For Individual large orders we ship items unassembled, to keep shipping costs down and packaging sizes smaller for Customers. We've seen a real increase in the number of people who want this option, especially for wedding orders. People are happy to put a wee screw in a sign if it means their shipment's carbon emissions are smaller.
Our Future
We know we can always be doing more; and it's exciting to find new ways of doing things that mean we can get our work out there safely into the world.
We've been working with the Charity, 'Trees on the Land'; we've been raising money with our Christmas Cards. The profits help to fund tree planting on the Isle of Ireland. We want to try and add to the solution, and not just slow the damage. We want to keep sharing what we're doing, and be a positive influence in the World.
