R3project round-up 2: the Kitchen

Our kitchen is an open one, and forms part of the living room, because we like to cook with our friends around.

KITCHEN FLOOR
The kitchen area is defined by a change of flooring. The cork floor of the rest of the apartment gives way to funky green and white tiles. We tried hard to find some local tiles made from recycled TV screens, but because the company went bust, we decided on some local colourful tiles by TAU Ceramics, whose effort towards sustainability we appreciate.

FURNITURE & STORAGE
The kitchen cupboards are made from recycled wooden wine boxes, carefully assembled by our amazing carpenter Rodrigo Diaz. The countertop is solid FSC-certified, untreated wood from IKEA. The same goes for the central piece of furniture called FÖRHÖJA that serves as storage and extra work surface. As a storage solution for the upper parts, we chose GRUNDTAL, fully recyclable stainless steel shelves from which you can also hang things like pots and pans. We prefer this system to cupboards for both aesthetic and practical reason, plus they are made from a minimum amount of materials.

WATER USAGE
As far as saving water is concerned, we installed a very special low-flow tab by Tehsa. We are still trying to fit in a dishwasher, as “the dishwasher uses only half the energy, one-sixth of the water, and less soap, to boot”, according to one study at the University of Bonn in Germany. However, as you can read in 'dishwasher versus hand washing' on TreeHugger, the situation is not as black and white. We are also looking for a water filter to drink the currently not very nice tasting water from the tab and stop buying plastic bottles. This has turned out to be a difficult mission, any tips are appreciated!

ELECTRICITY USAGE
We also try to use as less energy as possible. CFL lights illuminate our kitchen, and all the necessary electric appliances such as the fridge, oven and cooking surface, are A+ energy efficient.

THE FOOD
Of course you can’t have a kitchen without the food. Our fresh produce comes in a box every 2 weeks: 10 kg of locally grown, non-chemically treated vegetables and fruit from Recapte. All leftovers are fed to the worms in our compost bin on the balcony. To serve ourselves meals, we use fully recyclable glass plates.

CLEANING PRODUCTS
Last but not least, we like to clean green. Most of our eco cleaning products are mixed together in the kitchen, or at least stored under the sink.

More:
R3project round-up 1: General Installations at Home
R3project round-up 2: the Kitchen

Wooden Board Upon the Wall, Who is the Greenest Green of All?

After we wrote about our FSC-certified MDF shelf ‘Never Empty’, we had quite a few readers contacting us about more eco-friendly alternatives. To close of some storage space and to build more shelves in the studio, we went out hunting again for the greenest engineered wood options, the disadvantage of which is mainly the high amount of toxic resins they contain.

OSB (Oriented Strand Board), as suggested by Terra Foundation, ended up being the best material for us to build some sliding doors in order to close of a storage area on top of the bathroom (see photo). We like the visual effect of the unevenly layered flakes of wood and appreciate its strength. An environmental advantage of this board is that any kind of tree and even the smallest branches of a tree, can be shredded and used. The amount of resin in OSB is very low (less than 5%) compared to other engineered woods (up to 85% in MDF). However, we recommend you check that they don’t contain formaldehyde. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to get this kind of information from your regular wood dealer. In fact, we found it almost impossible to have our order cut to size and delivered due to the small amount we needed. In the end we obtained everything at Servei Estaciò in Barcelona, who do free deliveries in the city centre and are willing to cut any given amount. The price per m2 is 26,90€ for 10mm thick boards. For more information and the technical specifications of OSB, click here.


A cheaper option is chipboard at 13,80€ / m2, which we used for the shelves in the studio (see photo). This is one of the weakest fibreboards (hence cheaper) and, unlike OSB, is not recommended for outdoors use or in moist areas like kitchens. Due to the larger pieces of wood shavings used to make chipboard, it’s not as attractive-looking as other fibreboards. You can however paint it afterwards. Most of the wood particles used to make chipboard are recycled (75% in Canada and the US) and the amount of resin used during the manufacturing is also low (between 4 and 10%). At Servei Estaciò they even assured us their chipboard didn’t contain any resin- but we don’t quite believe them…

When you are looking for boards, make sure you use formaldehyde-free chipboard and preferably made of 100% recycled or recovered wood fibres.

The Never-Empty Shelf, FSC of course

Last week we finished our shelf! As you can see it’s never sad and empty. The boards are MDF made from recycled sawdust from FSC-certified wood. The paint is eco-friendly, more about that here and here. It’s designed by Petz Scholtus.

We chose MDF over natural wood because of the pricing, the fact that we were going to paint it anyway, and for its strength (longevity) and size (trees have limited dimensions…). We know that because MDF contains resins, it’s not the ideal solution from an eco point of view. We came across recycled plastic boards and some made from hemp, but those options are mostly too expensive for a simple shelving application. Manolo from the Foundation Terra suggested using OSB boards because they contain very little resin. In Barcelona however, nobody could guarantee us that the boards were made from certified woods- very dodgy… So we are still looking for an alternative to MDF for our next piece. Please send us your comments! Or maybe we find some old doors we can reuse…