Building something yourself is nowadays rarely seen, we don´t repair nor build our furniture or anything around us, we got used to going to the shop and buying whatever we need, we pay for it, use it, and throw it away after a while.
In a way, when buying there are no connections, or few, with that product, let’s say furniture, clothes, etc… But building our own furniture creates a link with something that is part of ourselves… We weld, polish the wood, paint, etc
Perhaps they are not very nice, but unique… we spend too many hours building everything in our Coliving, basically because we didn’t know how to build many things, and we made a lot of mistakes…
But we learn something very powerful, we understand that this Coliving represents ourselves, what we are, and what we believe…
And more importantly, if we did it, you can too…
Repairing and reducing
Developing a Zero Waste strategy in our EcoIsleta Coliving, has got many different angles…
There are two very important concepts for us, one is repairing and the other one is reducing. When you have these two concepts at stake, many typical options or shops get out of your mind.
Furniture is an important asset in any hospitality business, it costs a lot of money, but many customer decisions are based on the atmosphere of the furniture…
But when your principles are repairing and reducing, building with raw materials is one of the best options.
Handmade furniture
Instead of buying furniture that travels all around the world, and breaks apart after a few months, we take a different approach.
We built our furniture ourselves by hand, we use pallet wood and 30×30 square bar of 6mt long. We built wardrobes, tables, beds, doors, etc… everything is handmade except chairs, home appliances, and mattresses…
That was more work in the beginning, also it was more expensive than buying then in the shop, but in the long run fit our principles of repairing and reducing.
If you look at the pictures of the furniture we build for EcoIsleta Coliving, you will realize that they are very strong, and also very easy to repair…
And if you are asking yourself how can we repair this furniture, the answer is simple, we have machines in the house to do it, like a welder, sanders, etc, because we build them inside of the house, during a 3 years renovation process…
