sustainable furniture
Watch Us on Fox News, The Strategy Room
This Friday, May 14 Vermont Woods Studios will be featured live during the 9-10am segment of the nationally broadcast FOX News Show, The Strategy Room. We're heading down to the FOX studios in Rockefeller Center to meet and talk with show host, Harris Faulkner about Vermont's fine handmade furniture, the artisans who make it and the importance of choosing American-made furniture that's built from sustainably-harvested wood.
Tune in and see us! The show is available online as well as on some FOX stations around the country. If you can't make it for the live show, you can watch us online anytime within a week after the show. Wish us luck!
Where Does Your Furniture Come From?
Are you spending more time at home these days and less time going out? If you're burrowing in for the winter, maybe now is the time to curl up on the couch, take a look at the furniture in your nest and think about where it actually came from. See how well it meets this totally biased, arbitrary and unscientific test.
If your furniture is: Give Yourself
- Made in America: 10 points
- Made of local woods and materials: 30 points
- Handmade by local craftspeople: 40 points
- Has non-toxic finish: 5 points
- Made of sustainably harvested woods and/or other organic materials: 10 points
- Imported from China, Vietnam, India or other third world countries: -100 points
- Made from illegally harvested rainforest woods like mahogany, teak: -100 points
What was your score? It's hard to even know because chances are there is nothing on the furniture to provide this information. It's a good bet, however that if you didn't go out of your way to buy American and you don't know where it came from, your furniture is probably imported, made from illegally harvested rainforest wood and crafted by slave laborers making pennies per hour.
We're trying to encourage consumers to buy American furniture, that's handcrafted here in the USA from local sustainably harvested woods, by people making a livable wage. Oddly enough, the price is roughly the same either way.
Check out our American made furniture at Vermont Woods Studios and compare.
Designer Kathy Ireland Collaborates with Sustainable Furniture Council
It's been about three years since we at Vermont Woods Studios joined a handful of other green furniture companies to initiate the development of a non-profit, standard-setting group called the Sustainable Furniture Council, SFC.
Since that day, what a success story the SFC has been in educating members and consumers about the characteristics and benefits of green, eco-friendly, environmentally safe furniture.
SFC's latest brainchild is the DesigninGreen Leadership team which consists of pre-eminent designers like Kathy Ireland, Alexander Julian, Vladimir Kagan and Tom Felicia (from Dress My Nest). Find more about this sustainable furniture project at the SFC website.
Get In The Milkcrate!
Isn't that a cool name for a blog? Rebecca is our new graphic designer at Vermont Woods Studios, but we've also discovered that she's a very engaging writer. Such a multi-talented person she is!
She's so fascinated by the behind the scenes world of custom furniture making that she's decided to blog about it and share the scoop with you.
Why Get in the Milkcrate? Well, it's an old Vermont saying that means get onboard, we're ready to go! Rebecca was thinking of that every time she heard us pick up the phone and talk to customers about going green in their homes.
Are you interested in sustainable forestry and preservation of endangered species that live in the forest? Why don't you Get in the Milkcrate and ride with us to a greener planet?
Natural Furniture and America’s Best Idea
If you haven't been able to watch Ken Burn's new film on America's National Parks, it's not too late. This is a six episode series and every nature lover will want to enjoy the spectacular scenery, interesting history and urgent call to action that Burns presents. At Vermont Woods Studios being a wood furniture maker, we're particularly interested in the issues of sustainable forestry in the national parks.
One of our favorite national parks mentioned in this film series is Sequoia National Forest. Sequoias are the largest trees ever to inhabit the earth, growing to heights of 300 feet and diameters of 30 feet! Their ages commonly range from 2,000 to 3,000 years. Some were 1000 years old during the time of Christ!
Although once widespread, giant sequoias now occur only in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of central California. If you have literally 2 minutes to spare, you can take action to protect the Giant Sequoias and other ancient forest in America. Visit Save America's Forests, click on Instant Letter and in 2 minutes or less you can send a letter to your representatives in Congress asking them to stop destructive forms of logging, such as clearcutting, and to protect ecologically important forest areas such as Ancient forests and roadless forests.
Then pat yourself on the back for doing an awesome job in protecting the environment and fighting global warming!
Sustainable Furniture Helps Sustain Frog Populations
Did you know that we are now in the midst of the greatest mass extinction of amphibians since the dinosaurs? Watch PBS’s Nature Series, Frogs: The Thin Green Line. You won’t believe how frogs– after being on this planet for more than 250 million years — are now struggling for survival in nearly every one of their habitats around the world.
As we saw in Jim Andrews’ show on Rattlers, Peepers and Snappers, there is an environmental crisis unfolding in Vermont, but also around the globe. Where there used to be the calls of frogs, scientists now hear only silence, and this silence is spreading throughout North, South and Central America, Australia and beyone.
What can we do to help one of the most wonderous, diverse and beloved, animals on Earth stop slipping away at such a frightful speed? Live green, support amphibian conservation projects and visit the Nature website to learn about citizen science monitoring programs like Frog Watch.
We’re working hard to do our part at Vermont Woods Studios too. Purchase sustainable furniture from our online store and we’ll donate 5% of your purchase to your favorite environmental non-profit.
What We’re Doing… Forest Stewardship Council, FSC Certification
Well, first we are careful to ensure that all of Vermont Woods Studios fine furniture is made from sustainably harvested wood. For the most part, we source our wood locally from people we know personally and who adhere to strict environmental laws, policies and guidelines. When a customer requests a tropical wood like mahogany or teak, we ensure it is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. The FSC is considered the international “Gold Standard” for responsible forestry management and we achieved FSC certification for Vermont Woods Studios in Feb, 2007. We are very careful to use only FSC certified rainforest woods when we us them at all.
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