re:Furn - re:Fresh Living

New directions...

noreply@blogger.com (re:Furn) — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 17:38:00 +0000

It has not been idle days with re:Furn. These few days re:Furn was visited by quite a lot of people, a partner has joined the boat and new directions were identified. While talking we came up with some ideas which we think provides new direction to re:Furn. Any idea to flourish needs to have a vision and we have tried to have a vision with re:Furn which we we would be sharing with all of you very soon. I have also started talks with some new stakeholders on this and hopefully we will be able to provide more details over the days.

Someone recently called up enquiring about re:Furn for a sofa and the first question that was asked was "where is your show room?" A tricky one to answer and a very important one too. I was expecting a query like this sooner or later and I knew it would be hard to convince a model of enterprenurship similar to this to the customers. Very soon we will be putting up our FAQ with which we will be able to clarify questions raised similar to the one here.

Padauk - Pterocarpus dalbergioides

noreply@blogger.com (re:Furn) — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 06:18:00 +0000

Padauk as we know is a timber widely used in furniture making and produces some of the best colored and finished products. I will try and introduce Padauak (the Andaman variety, Pterocarpus dalbergioides) as much as possible. Most of the data that I have tried compiling here are from the internet because that way you won't have to trust me for their authenticity ;)

A sample of the padauk wood has been pictured (on the left), click on the picture to read more about it from its website.

Pterocarpus is a pantropical genus of trees in the family Fabaceae, most of which yield valuable timber traded as padauk.

The Andaman Redwood, East Indian Mahogany, or Narra (Pterocarpus dalbergioides) is a species of legume in the Fabaceae family. It is found only in India.

Most of the furniture at home (where my parents currently reside in Andaman and Nicobar Islands) is made of padauk. I still have my study table, which I have seen since I was a toddler, in perfect shape. The fact that we have moved across the islands uncountable times and the table resisting all the effects of that proves to me beyond doubt that good furniture from a good wood can last longer than our selves.

I was equally surprised when I came to know lately that padauk is naturally termite resistant! Now I know why none of the furniture made of padauk at my home has ever had a termite problem. Not surprising hence, that some African padauks are used as herbal medicines to treat skin parasites and fungal infections.[2] This particular timber was called "barwood", most likely a species closely connected to Pterocarpus soyauxii.

Of all its other uses that we know it can also be used as a dye as it contains either water or alcohol soluble substances.

Its rare to find a wood with so many varied properties. It is just the lucky few who are able to appreciate it. re:Furn hopefully will be able to provide a platform for more people to do just that - "appreciate padauk"!

What is and Why re:Furn?

noreply@blogger.com (re:Furn) — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 14:27:00 +0000

Initially this was part of the re:Furn homepage, but it does get verbose and I have decided to publish it in the blog. The home page will display a much concise version of this matter. Read below to know What re:Furn is all about and Why re:Furn is the way it is.

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I am trying to spread through word of mouth an opportunity to buy authentic, high grade, best quality wooden furniture for ourselves.

Being from Andaman and Nicobar Islands, I had the opportunity to see and be with some of the finest wood available in the world today.

Personally I feel wood is something for which trees have to be cut, which is not what we want, but neither can we live without wood in our lives. They are bound to be used and made their presence felt almost everyday, everywhere. What we should try to achieve is maintain a balance between our needs and what Mother Nature can provide.

In many ways bad wooden furniture is a pressure on our natural resources. We buy wooden furniture paying premium prices which don’t last long and sadly are also not aesthetic enough. Isn’t this, a wastage of the natural resource- timber? Also imagine the amount of chemicals used in making semi wooden furniture with chemical coated ply and veneer.

We have shorter interest spans now and don’t expect anything to be useful for more than 10 years. Isn’t this attitude wrong on our parts? Isn’t this also one of the reasons that we are finding and building cheaper and faster products which have limited life spans? Which is causing mass scale resource underutilization and overwhelming production loads on the nature?

Remember the days when wooden furniture would be passed on from one generation to another. Wood in limited quantities utilized to its potential. Timber would come from mature trees and the workmanship on it to last for centuries and not years. Forests would eventually last longer and support the needs of human kind better.

The Forest Department in Andaman and Nicobar Islands looks after the flora fauna and ecosystem of islands. Off late they have even cut off huge number of jobs from one of its largest saw mills (at one time the largest in Asia) as they reduced the timber cutting activities in the islands. Timber in any form is only cut under the supervision of the Forest Department which ensures that any illegal felling of trees is avoided. The supervised and judicious timbering of the forests has resulted in lower production and limited availability of wood. It has also ensured that we understand that these resources are precious and need greater care and good utilization.

The carpenters who build furniture in the islands buy the wood from the forest department, usually from auctions and then create their pieces. The long history of wood and wooden furniture has made these carpenters in these islands skillful and one of the best craftsmen in this business. And it shows from the work that they have completed and created over the years.

re:Furn is an attempt to bridge the gap between our need for wooden furniture and the nature we thrive in. It is a way to reach out to the skilled artisans of the Andaman islands, to get a piece of history and nature which we will cherish for lifetimes.

Furniture made from some of the finest wood available in the forests of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Furniture which will not last for days or years but have been made to last for lifetimes. Simple and well built these furnitures will forever change what you thought and knew about woodden furniture.

One of the most famous and one out of the only three places where this wood is available, Andaman Padauk (Pterocarpus dalbergioides) is the best and a class 1 rated wood type in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Furniture made from this wood is famous for its birght red and warm shade of color and fine grained texture. The wood lasts long, is termite resistant naturally and is very easy to work with for the carpenter making it one of the best suited wood for furniture.

But we are not limited to Padauk alone, the varied availability of various other types of wood ensures that we have open options to select any of them. Timber being one of the largest sources of income (other than tourism of course) and the forests managed in a very controlled and natural way by the Forest Department of the islands, we have a very balanced way of obtaining the required wood without the least impact on the eco system of the islands.

re:Furn Sample Gallery

noreply@blogger.com (re:Furn) — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 07:33:00 +0000

I was finally able to put a gallery of the sample furniture which I had snapped. I will still have to add pictures of my own cot (it was the first furniture I brought from Andaman and is still in perfect shape after 2 years and 2 moves) . The gallery is a simple picasa web gallery and also has details of the furniture and its various views.

The direct link to the Picasa album is a click from here.

The pictures will always be available from the re:Furn Album page .

More will be added over the time keep checking back.

Update: Please know that these pictures have not been altered or modified. They might not look glamorous in the pictures and neither would I try to change the way they look. This is how a real wooden furniture looks like, though in reality they look more royal and elegant than the pictures themselves.

Publishing re:Furn

noreply@blogger.com (re:Furn) — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 19:01:00 +0000

Finally after a lot of thought I have decided to go ahead and publish few of the pages of re:Furn. I was able to add more text to the homepage and also to the Idea page. I added a feedback form, thanks to the Zoho team for the Zoho creator, to collect feedback and enquiries.

The rest of the links/pages are still to be published and are being worked on. Hopefully with days they should see the light very soon!

Visit the published re:Furn Home Page

Will be posting more soon as I keep updating the re:Furn site and incase I get any new enquiries.