Sustainability and why we are still here when so many have fallen?
We have been making furniture for what seems like a lifetime, surviving all the Trend changes from the days of standard Pine furniture to the just finished days of oak furniture, now a new trend is exploding and we are right at the front of the pack and leading the way forward with sustainable products that have no impact on the world we love.
Reclaimed furniture isn’t just about rustic looks and age old timbers, its about not cutting down trees and destroying forests just so someone can have a new bed or kitchen table, each of our reclaimed wood products has existed on this planet for over 100 years as a roof joist or floor board in a building that has recently been demolished.
Companies like ours trying to make a difference believe in so much more than just earning a quick profit no matter the cost to the environment, its not always easy for “Green” firms like ours to survive in a world that keeps charging less and less for products because they know that millions across the globe buy them and customers generally don’t care about how much plastic goes into there home furnishings, and we have seen how much washes up on beeches or ends up being consumed by Sealife like turtles.
We here at Roy Walker Furniture are very passionate about what we do and its sad to see other companies like ours fall into bankruptcy or liquidate because bills increase or because customers would rather have a cheap product that lasts a few years instead of a lifetime, I have watched websites like EAT SLEEP LIVE collapse under the strain, MODISH LIVING go through different owners and INDIGO Furniture and Browndog interiors collapsed also.
We actually used to supply some of the above companies furniture when they first started out and had relationships with them, as most do in this trade – we miss our friends like Vintage and reclaimed who we supplied too for over 10 years in Edenborough.
Its neve nice seeing companies that are trying to do a good thing fall down, yes it might be seen as a positive for us because its less competition, but when you have more plastics being produced every year to keep up with more and more people being born its quickly getting out of control and the News on TV thankfully is now shining a light on the rubbish being dumped into our oceans and seas.
I personally wish our products could be cheaper to help more and more people, but the rising cost of REAL genuine reclaimed wood is going up and up as the timbers from old building become more scarce, there are many firms using words like (rustic) (rough sawn) (plank) and these are fresh products with wood only 10 years old and made to look Reclaimed by distressing them with tools, I always say if its cheap its probably too good to be true so please always ask questions when you buy – lucky for us we can give exact history’s of each batch of timbers so you know exactly where your product came from.
50 years and still going strong – we are a tight family business and we cant wait for you to walk through our showroom doors and be blown away by the quality of the products we make.