The Wonderful World of Wood

Now then, my faithful blogworms.

In the interests of all things eco and sustainable, it has come to my attention about a, hopefully, great inaugural show being held tomorrow up at Hutton in the Forest in the Penrith area. Free to get in, free to park and the promise of a great informative family day out. It's junction 41 off the M6 and signposted on the B5305.

Forestry Festival, at Hutton-in-the-Forest Estate, Penrith

Sunday 21 July 2013

Sponsored by The Forestry Commission themselves it's a show about all things timber, sustainable forestry, green crafts and eco issues surrounding the best efficient use of our natural timber resources, so yours truly is going up the check it out and find out what can be learned from the people in the know.

There are 56 seperate stallholders planned with topics such as using wood fuel effeciently, eco living tips, Biomass heating, Green fuels, landscaping to help nature, basket making, logging, forestry concerns and entertainment for the kids.

If you're free tomorrow and at a loose end, go up and check it out yourselves, look for our campervan Pandora and come and say Hi!. We'd love to meet you.

If you don't make it, I appreciate it's short notice, I'll be posting hints and tips gleaned from the people I meet on next weeks blog. Follow the link below to find out more.

See you next week. Jules.

http://www.cumbriawoodlands.co.uk/courses-events/2013/7/forestry-festival-at-hutton-in-the-forest-estate-penrith.aspx

A snippet of what's on offer:

Entertainment and exhibits

Entertainment includes our logging competition, a shooting range, a local folk band and forest storytellers.

Exhibits will include: forestry contractors, equipment providers, biomass producers and greenwood workers. We're also not charging exhibitors a fee for their stands, and are planning lots of opportunities for live demonstrations of their work.

Festival aims

The Festival’s aims include raising awareness within the forestry sector of a variety of equipment, techniques, innovation and networks, as well as educating the general public about the sustainability of locally produced timber products, woodfuel, woodland management and the benefits well managed woodland can bring.

If you’re new to wood fuel

Considering switching to wood fuel no doubt raises lots of questions. Take your time to read about why you should burn wood in order to understand if it’s right for you. If you decide that it is, find out about Funding and Grants available to you, and take a look at Burning Wood Well to make sure you get the most from your wood.

If you already use wood fuel

There are lots of further options to consider and tips to improve your efficiency and save resources and money. The information and videos about Burning Wood Well will help you ensure that your wood fuel use is as economical as possible, and our Wood Fuel Advisory Service can help you find ways to become even more self-sufficient.

Jam & Wax, an odd combination !

Ey up my faithful blogworms, lots been happening since my last blog.

Camper Jam went extremely well, my VW crossword was well received with lots of entries, someone very soon will be getting a fabulous FREE roadstone plaque of the ride of choice. Weather was scorching, higher than in Spain over the weekend, lots of folk doing the crossword to keep out of the sun.

 If you're reading this as a VDub fan and going to Harewood VW Fest in August, there's another opportunity to have a go and win a plaque AND we've even got another chance as Malvern Bus Fest have taken a third VW Crossword to go in their show programme in September.

Our 'Reclaimed Madness' kitchen project is going particularly well ( see earlier blog for details ) with all the doors & panels etc now finished, just waiting for the cabinets to arrive on Monday and off we go again towards the finishing line. Going over on Monday to lay the new floor, made from timber salvaged from an old Victorian Engine Shed, it's all prepped and cut to length so hopefully it should be a doddle to lay.
As a detail thing, I'm even going to use old victorian floor nails to lay it that I've salvaged myself from old floors I've removed over the years. You can't beat authenticity !!
The timber is very old and gnarled and I want to preserve that, so instead of sanding and lacquering I'm going to use a good brand eco friendly floor oil to treat it with and to give good long term durability.

Massively Important Top Tip:

Definitely worth mentioning here about oil finishing timber floors. If you're looking to do this yourself at any time, when you select your oil LOOK AT THE INGREDIENTS on the side of the tin, many floor finishing oils contain a wax of some sort as part of their formulation and they're not very eco friendly !!

DO NOT BUY THESE OILS !..They will give you loads of problems when you come to refinish your floor in the future. If your floor needs a good sanding back during refinishing, trying to sand a floor that's been treated with wax content oils will clog up your sander for fun !!.... Except it's no fun, trust me !..... It will take far longer than it should  and you WILL have to scrub it all with a brush and white spirit to get the wax out and use a hell of a lot of sandings discs, I know because I've done it on floors finished by other people using wax oils.

You can, of course, leave your floor as it is and re-apply more oil over the top .... Don't ..... when the Victorians etc. had waxed floors, they had staff to continually buff it up and polish it and keep it looking nice and I wouldn't mind betting ....... you haven't ! ..... so don't go there unless you plan on selling you house and leaving the problem for someone else, which is a bit of a dirty trick ! You never know it might be me that has to sort it out.

When this job is finished I will be posting the story of the kitchen in photo's for you to have a look at and hopefully gain some knowledge of it if you were thinking of trying this style yourselves. It really is going to look fantastic. Our client is so blown away with what she's seen already that I do think the odd tear may be shed when she sees it completely finished.

That's all for this folks !

Jules.

Reclaimed Madness

Ey up, my faithful blogworms, this weeks blog is all about rubbish, stuff that other folk throw away when they pull buildings down.

Everyone is familiar with salvaging these days, salvage yards are the some of cool and trendiest places to shop for stuff for your home, so this week we're doing the same but with a twist.

Not afraid to tackle anything Eco, Recycled, Reclaimed, Whatever !! we're now having a crack at a first for Milestone ........ and all without the aid of a safety net ..... there is no PLAN 'B' !

 A first because we're building a complete kitchen, on site, in a clients home using our already established Eco cabinets with Eco worktops and a bloody great pile of salvaged timber from an Engine shed floor and roof beams from a Victorian factory, rip cut into planks!

A first because we're going to make all the unit doors ledged & braced, ( like an old farmhouse door but smaller ) which as far as I'm aware has never been done before !

A first because our client has asked for all the doors & drawer fronts to be "handleless"...Hmm, tricky !

A first because we will be making every individual unit door, drawer front & panel, by hand,  in the kitchen while we're building it.

There, I've done it now, I've told the whole world that we are positively bonkers in even attempting this BUT we are totally confident that we can pull it off successfully.

Our client is a fantastic lady who's just the right side of bonkers herself, a very creative thinker and completely into reclaiming and recycling. Right up our street, in fact.
She wants all the old cuts, notches, bolt holes, tenons etc leaving in, where possible, to make the kitchen look like exactly what it's made from ...... Very Old Timber
It's not everyones cup of tea, I know,  but we are going to have a fantastic time working with our client to make this happen and thoroughly enjoy ourselves building it.

As this progresses, we will be keeping a photographic record so when we're finished, we will be able to share it with you all, so stay tuned for the next gripping instalments.

As it says on my personal twitter account: @pandorasdad71, .... Logger, Blogger & Worker of wood ..This is probably my ultimate test

Jules.

Roadstone plaque news

 Big news for Roadstone Plaque fans

We are featuring the first of our 'Giveaways'  at the Volkwagen show: 

Camper Jam at Weston Park in Shropshire on the 5th to 7th July

Get some tickets and get yourself down there, it's stacking up to be a great show.

 We have created a Crossword that you can enter to win one of these little beauties based on all things V Dub and we're going to be 

GIVING AWAY 

a fabulous recycled roadstone plaque in the standard size of 300mm high x 375mm wide as the prize for the winning entry.

The Roadstone Plaque at the top of the page of the blue & white Splitscreen is now in the very proud possession of one: David Eccles, Editor of Camper & Commercial magazine

His reaction to receiving his fab plaque was:

"O, WOW !, not expecting it to be as big or look so impressive. THANK YOU, I think when people see a real example, they will really be blown away. !"

Keep watching for further opportunities to win YET ANOTHER plaque at the next event, should be for August if things go according to plan.

Anyone reading this from my home town in Ilkley in Yorkshire, there's going to be a chance for you to get your hands on one of these ' for nowt', watch for the Gazette issue on Thursday 27th June.

Trust me these are going to be BIG, they're going to be popping up all over the place from here on in !!

Anyway, I'm blogging on a Friday as I'm off on my jollies tomorrow and I'll thank you all in advance for wishing me a happy holiday . Thank you, see you in a week or two !!

Jules.

Recycled fabulousness for everyone !!

Ey up my faithful blogworms, this weeks blog may seem a bit random but bear with me, there is an eco connection.... honest !

As a spin off from our brand new Recycled Kitchen Splashbacks ( see website banner ) we are now really excited about a new development .... available exclusively to everybody.

Drum roll ! .........Recycled Roadstone Car Plaques

1971 Bay window Campervan 'Pandora'

It works like this:  the concept is to immortalise your ride of choice, whether a Campervan, Classic car, or any interesting vehicle you have, on a plaque made from the very roadstone you drive it on !!

How extremely cool is that ??

We think it's an absolutely fabulous and original idea and it seems people are agreeing with us as orders are being placed already. 
For car themed businesses, contact us for details on how to get your first standard sized one .... COMPLETELY FREE OF CHARGE !!

This made me think ? ..... my blogworms need a chance at this !!

1960's Splitscreen

The plaques brilliantly fit our Eco ethos by being made from a recycled mixture of roadstone waste, welsh slate waste and sand, then finished with a glaze normally used for lining underground ceramic pipes. Giving them an overall 87% recycled content. They materials are cold cast and pressed using a very minimal energy requirement to form them.

They are exclusive to Milestone and available in 2 sizes: Standard at 300mm high x 375mm wide and Supersize at 600mm high x 750mm wide

The Standard size is at a very affordable £69.99 inc.vat & delivery to mainland UK

 The Supersize is stunning if you've got the space for one and are excellent value at £240.00 inc.vat.  As these are crated for delivery if you apply the code: MDL071 to your order we can give you free of charge delivery.

If you run a classic car show, showroom, magazine, corporate car events, off road days, track days etc. how fantastic would a plaque this size look, seriously impressing your clients sat on your reception desk, office wall or wherever ??

Now here's an offer ..... if you need it, we'd even make you an easel to sit it on !!! for a small fee, naturally.

Overseas orders should also be possible but we'd need to look into delivery implications, let us know if you're interested !..... Lets go Global, why not ?

There is probably no reason why we couldn't produce these fab plaques with pics of your family, pets, your home, in fact; pretty much anything you would like made into a very special and original commemorative plaque !!

Contact us through our website for details on how to get your hands on one of these and if you're local to us, call in and see the real thing, we'll even make you a coffee !!. Tell us you saw it on the blog.

Lets go blogworms, get ordering !

Jules

Underwater Basket Weaving

Ey up my faithful blogworms,

This week I just thought I'd tell you a little bit more about myself to give you an idea of what we're all about.

Married for 20 years this year, there is myself, my fabulous wife, 5 dogs, 4 kids (all left home and married ), 4 grandkids,1 Campervan, 1 Landrover and a big shed at the bottom of the garden which is my 'inventing stuff' place and sanctuary. A lot of the developments that find their way in to our product range with the kitchen company actually start life as the germ of an idea hatched in my shed !

The ability to "play" with ideas and designs has fuelled much of the direction the kitchen business has taken, it's provided to confidence to say ....Yes .... to pretty much any request for any furniture, no matter how weird or wondeful and know that we can and will build it, even if we have no idea how when we take it on.

And believe me .... over the years that's happened quite a bit .... but the important thing is that we do know with absolute certainty that it WILL be built and we WILL find a way.

As well as creating and building kitchens for close on 25 years now, my other interests include;


Playing out in our campervan, of which there have been a few sideways references to in previous blogs and on our website and ....Yes it does have a recycled interior in it made from reclaimed oak floorboards with our recycled coffee cup worktops. It would be rude not to & it was built in my shed !! Pic shown is a particularly wet New Years Eve last year and we decided to go wading .... scary.



Seeking inspiration for and building other reclaimed timber projects, such as the Camp box and table shown left, obviously to use in the campervan, which we do actually sell to anyone who needs one in their life. Contact me for more details !! We think they're fab !!





Also using reclaimed factory beam rip cut timber to build 'period' projects for our customers. This one shown is part of a suite of bathroom furniture we made to go in a victorian farm house and was inspired by the old washstands popular at the time.

We have been asked to tackle a variety of weird and unusual things over the years and recently we were asked to come up with Eco Retro as a concept. To revisit the 60's with brand new Eco status kitchen furniture and this was the result, Totally Eco and cool or what !!





I hope you found this snapshot into my crazy world interesting, if only brief, but it sums up what we do and why.
If you have any wierd and wonderful ideas of your own, do contact us and lets create them together !!

By the way, God knows where I got the title from, it was just the first random thing that came into my head. Even I think my head's a scary place sometimes.

Jules.

Ravenscraig Revisited

Good morning my faithful blogworms, I promised you an update on BRE Ravenscraig up in bonny Scotland, well.... here it is !

Welcome to our new followers in the Ukraine, Italy  and Venezuela, it's good to have you on board. This blog is a follow up to our eco adventures in Scotland. For the beginning of the story, see blog dated Saturday 20th April., titled Bonny Green Scotland and you'll soon pick up the plot.

Pics are of the building practically finished and looking glorious and the interior now as fully functioning. For those of you, like us, who think it's rather fab, modern and sleek, the kitchen is our Eco2 in Titanium finish with recycled Coffee Cup worktops, see website for more details.

Just a quick catch up blog this one really as it's bank noliday weekend here and if my wife knew I was at work doing this ... there'd be trouble !!

My apologies for the positioning of the pics, seemingly randomly spread about, I've got no idea on how the hell to make them stay where I put them while writing this, they seem to have a mind of their own !!

I'll try and get to grips with it when I've got a bit more time, promise !!

Happy Bank Holiday, see you next week. Jules.

Eco goes Organic 2

 Ey up, my loyal Blogworms, 

Now we're even more excited, testing of Eco Organic door samples has gone particularly well and we have 2 fab new doors !!

Our continuing quest to be able to provide more Eco choices has been given a massive boost by bringing Eco Organic on stream. 

We are always striving to be able to satisfy more and more requests from you, our brilliant eco supporters, and Eco Organic gives us full scope to now to offer you something for every scenario.

It has been a nightmare for probably 4 or 5 years now to bring this together as people we talked to just looked at us as if we were mad !!. which is actually fair comment ..... you have to be slightly mad in business today to want to go against all the trends, stick your neck out and make something new with no guarantee it will work. 

However ..... if you believe in it .... slightly mad or not .... when it works, it's deeply satisfying. 





There is no other kitchen company in the UK at this time that can provide as many different choices of Eco kitchens as we can .... Fact !!

Following on from my earlier blog about sick building syndrome, it may look a bit suspicious that all of a sudden we've got an Eco kitchen that will help in cleansing your home.
In Creating Eco Organic we were focusing on being able to make an eco status painted kitchen as that was one gap in our range that needed filling. The timing is pure fluke.

But don't knock it ..... the bits all came together just at the right time, and every body needs a bit of luck sometimes ... right ?

I've found that over the years to come up with a new idea is great, for folk to agree with you & buy it is better still, to fulfill a need with your products gives you a buzz and in reality, now we can actually do all these three and make a difference to someones health then it's absolutely brilliant !!

There are so many allergy sufferers out there today and so many people who don't realise that a lot of their maladies are probably caused by their home surroundings that to be able to bring a least one answer to some of their problems, really is a fantastic feeling.

It's hard to describe how I feel right now except immensely pleased that we've succeeded and even if we only make a significant difference in a few cases  ..... then the whole thing was so worthwhile.

Don't forget ...... we are not limited to domestic kitchens, we can make bookcases, bedroom furniture, storage cupboards of all shapes and sizes to go into any environmentally sensitive locations such as nursing homes, museums, childrens nurseries, schools, health clinics, laboratories, hospitals and art galleries and probably loads more I can't think of right now.

The future's healthier ... the future's Eco Organic !!

Proud. 

Jules

Long live the revolution, organically speaking.

Now my Eco Blogworms,

You're just about to go organic aswell, but before we start, I would like to make an effort to say hello to our international friends and to say thank you for following my ramblings every week. So to our American friends and other English speakers ... Howdy ! / Hello !  ( sorry about Howdy but I couldn't think of what else to use ! )

And to others from around our fabulous planet,... Hello from the list below, it's fantastic to have followers from abroad.

German: Guten Morgen!         French: Bonjour!       Russian: доброе утро     

Indonesian: Selamat pagi!      Brazil: Bom dia!        Malay: Pagi yang baik!  

Swedish: God morgon!          Greek: kαλημέρα!

OK, I admit, I cheated and used Google translator, so if any of these are wrong, I'm blaming Google. But you've made the effort so I thought the least I could do was to return the compliment. 

Anyway, to business. The world of Eco is a very frustrating place and sometimes results you believe in are not easy to find. I've learned it takes patience, a certain amount of luck & a lot of sheer determination.

We've been chasing, for 4 or 5 years now, a way of making Eco friendly painted kitchens that ticks all the boxes we need and .... finally .... this last week, we've nailed it ! and we're really excited about it !!

Using a combination of probably the most environmentally friendly ( zero formaldehyde ) Mdf board we can find. One that is "designed for environmentally sensitve areas such as Museums, Art Galleries, Hospitals, Schools and Nursing Homes" and as such will be perfect for your home environment ( see my earlier blog about Sick Building Syndrome )

Coupled with: 

Water based Organic paints that are "the worlds first complete range of decorative paints, all odourless and completely free of solvents and toxic chemicals, being derived from Organic sources. Paints proven to be of benefit to sufferers of asthma, M.E., chronic fatigue & post viral fatigue syndrome."

Suddenly life is sweet & we can create a whole new range of kitchens, any shape, any style, any size and in 120 different colours and seen to have positive health benefits, the world is at our feet !

A new range is born .. Eco Organic .. and you heard it here first.

The benefits to everyone that a kitchen made this way can bring are potentially massive.

I believe that making kitchens this way will be the most significant step forward in environmentally friendly kitchen design since we started doing this back in 2005.


We've been running trials on sample doors this week and so far the results are brilliant, our sprayer says that these are some of the best water based paints he's ever tried and the way the  paint sets in between coats, he reckons they will give a great durability long term.

By adjusting the viscosity of the paint with water to just the right level for spraying we have achieved a double success. One, is that we get a perfect finish with good coverage and Two, is that we can supply a tin of exactly the same paint with every job so that you can touch up panels to cope with lifes little knocks and bruises.

So, come on !! be fair, it's not every day you can get, not only a brilliantly versatile Eco kitchen .... but one that's good for your health aswell !!

Let's get the world talking about Eco Organic and start a revolution in eco furniture design, it doesn't have to be just kitchens, we'll make anything !!

I'll be blogging about this again next week when the samples are finished and hopefully have some pics to show you, so look forward to the second gripping instalment !

Jules

Over to you, this week !!

Morning my Blogworm followers, now it's your turn.

Over the last few weeks I've chosen a variety of subjects to spout forth words of wisdom about covering all sorts of stuff, so I thought I'd hand over to my increasing number of faithful followers to see if there's anything specifically that you would like covered in future gripping episodes of the continuing saga of going green.

So far with tech stuff, top tips, advice on greening up your life & stories of our adventures etc there's a lot of info been blogged and it might be time to take stock, digest all that lot and let you come back to me if there's owt you might like more info about.

Along with all that info, I should perhaps add at this stage that we don't just make and fit eco kitchens into homes but we can & have done: offices, coffee shops ( coffee cup table tops ... naturally ), schools, college & university furniture, even narrow boats ( which makes using a spirit level a complete waste of time !! ) and through twitter ( @ecokitchens if you've not seen it yet ... and why not ? ) we're now looking into fitting out eco log cabins.

As you see, nowhere's safe. We can fit into any project that requires built in eco furniture. We've always said "If you want it, can imagine it & give us a quick sketch, then we can build it." and, significantly, we've never been stumped ... yet .

So as the topic this week is: .... Over to you, ..... then ......

Over to you !. Let us know if there are eco projects you are thinking about that you need help with, or even just the benefit of our experience on any issues that are puzzling you. We're here to help.

Jules.