How We Are Sustainable At Chatelaine

Upcycling and Recycling

Upcycling and recycling is a great way to give yourself a little project and find a unique furniture piece that just needs a little bit of love. It is also a great way to keep furniture and other items out of the bin.

A new year brings new resolutions, here at Chatelaine we’ve already tried to upcycle and recycle some of our household items as well as fabric. Throughout the last month we have been buying used furniture pieces, which includes a beautiful bench seat, two winged chairs and a small sidetable for our hallway.

With these new furniture pieces we are hoping to get the winged chairs upholstered to give them a new lease of life. The bench seat needs a new lid, painting and a cushion on top. The sidetable needs painting which shouldn’t be too time consuming. We also sold a different sidetable on Facebook to go to a loving home in a gorgeous refurbished Scottish Manor home. 

Fabrics

Where we can we try to buy as locally and as ecofriendly fabric as possible. Buying within the U.K reduces the emissions from transporting fabric from the other side of the world. Some of the wonderful fabric houses we work with who are very sustainable are: Rapture & Wright, Fermoie, Romo and many more. In addition to the fabric houses we also are partnered with a number of local trades peoples helping local communities to grow.

How do we find items that we want?

We find that the best websites to buy furniture items are eBay and Facebook. eBay is very good for cheaper items that may be less specific. However, for more expensive and specialist pieces we have found that Facebook marketplace is better. There have been many gems that have been listed up for a lot less than they should be. We found 6 Neptune chairs and the Neptune extendable table. They were then upholstered and the legs were varnished. The key to searching is to keep your search as generic as possible and to trawl through all of the items that come up. We have found that selecting what wood type you would like (such as walnut, oak, mahogany) is a good way to filter some of the unwanted furniture out.

Our leftover fabric.

Generally, we have offcuts of fabric which are not large enough to make any items with and the customer do not want the fabric back. What we do instead of throw it away is donating it to the Cats protection on Curriage road, the link is below. (https://www.cats.org.uk/newbury)

Sustainability

At Chatelaine we try to be as sustainable as possible, this includes our recycled Satin ribbon instead of regular ribbon. Packing tape which is made of recycled paper. All cardboard is recycled appropriately. Additionally, we often repurpose fabric from curtains into blinds or cushions for the client.

Electric Vehicles

Currently, we have a Tesla which we use for initial consultations and check measures. We often travel into London and having an electric car means that our emissions are reduced drastically. We currently have a diesel Van which we take to fittings - we are looking for an electric van, however, there are not any suitable Vans in the market.