Many stores and furniture manufacturers boast of making and selling ecological and natural furniture. But far from reality, they only take advantage of the current need to reduce the “ecological footprint” and sell their furniture even better. Which are actually produced as usual except they have a rustic look …
Manufacturing ecological and natural furniture means reducing the impact on nature by designing and manufacturing furniture with noble materials. Without industrial transformation of its own raw material and that are durable. Let them be trees that have lived their entire useful life and that have been cut down to give them a new life in the manufacture of furniture. A tree that has grown healthy in a forest without having undergone genetic manipulation or crosses of species to “fatten” them as soon as possible like pigs …
Healthy wood, of “natural” growth, endures much longer over time and also has a much more attractive and beautiful grain at the same time.
In my workshop we work as much as possible with native or national woods. Simply because there are very good woods and you don’t have to go 1000 kilometers to find some exotic wood. We work the wood practically all by hand although we do not rule out at specific moments some machine preparation … Working by hand gives a lot of physical and moral pleasure, you forget about noise, danger, energy consumption, having a high budget for a large workshop and heavy machinery.
Manufacturing ecological and natural furniture in Spain is possible and feasible and it does not have to be more expensive. Perhaps it is one of the sectors of the industry where you can work with sustainable forests and controlled logging.
A furniture made by hand with solid wood is almost an ecological furniture … Therefore betting on solid wood is essential because nothing is wasted from the tree and it is very durable. It is a natural cycle. Take care of the forest for many years and then cut down the tree, with the branches you can make firewood, from the trunk we take the boards for the furniture, the shavings that are removed by brushing serves as fuel, compost … then we make a piece of furniture that will last hundreds years and become an antique. With the passage of time, the restorer will always have work and in the worst of cases, if the woodworm is done with the wood, then the cycle will begin again. Compost from the soil, tree growth, etc …
I bet on ecological and natural furniture that is made of pine or oak because I think it is the future.
Jean Baptiste Van den Heede.