• Antique Dresser
    Audacious Ideas,  Furniture Waste

    How Do You Like Your Coffee?

    If this gorgeous dresser was a cup of coffee it would be Turkish, robust, dark, slightly sweet. It savors patience over speed, respects tradition, and expects you to know how to avoid the grinds. Its perfect match is someone who loves craft over convenience and staring at tiny details. The opposite of this dresser is an instant coffee pod with sweetened creamer.

  • Vintage Brown Couch
    Furniture Waste

    Not Everything on the Curb is Fast Furniture

    Our society is built on disposability at every level: culturally, economically, politically. While we champion investments in frictionless consumption—think one click, free overnight delivery—our systems of refurbishment, reuse, and redistribution remain woefully underfunded, difficult, expensive, and stigmatized. That’s how an old couch that’s made to last, but out of date, receives the same end-of-life treatment as a single-use couch made with glued together wood chips. Our system wasn’t built to tell the difference. Extractive systems, that prioritize disposal first, that externalize costs, that stigmatize labor and second hand goods, and that equate imperfect pieces with useless, are the challenge. Regenerative, place-based solutions are the opportunity.

  • WM more employees than the usa has reupholsterers
    Furniture Waste

    I Repeat: Waste Management Has More Employees Than the USA Has Upholsterers

    I discovered this inconvenient truth while preparing for my @thegfda presentation today, “Furniture Waste as a Catalyst for Change.” Our systems represent our values. What type of future are we investing in? Who will benefit? Who will be left behind? Who has the megaphone? Who holds the power? Thanks again for hosting me Katie, and thanks to everyone who attended! Data source: 44,900 Waste Management employees in 2019 according to Insider Monkey article, compared to 32,870 upholsterers in 2018 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

  • Interviews,  Personal Reflections

    Furniturecycle Featured on Sew Much More Podcast

    I want to offer my deepest thanks to Ceil DiGuglielmo, host of the “Sew Much More Podcast,” for having me on her show last week. She was so gracious to include me as a guest among her cadre of home furnishings industry peeps. I appreciated her genuine interest in exploring furnishings from the bottom-up, which, she admitted, is a pretty different approach than she’s used to. We totally go for it and cover old lady furniture, IKEA, imperfect produce, Pinterest, big box stores and more. Take a listen here:

  • Splayed dresser
    Furniture Waste,  Personal Reflections

    Furniture Waste Surges Amid Mounting Crises

    My bike has been in purgatory since March with the exception of one bike protest. Last week I untangled it from the pile of cobwebs and leaves under which it was hidden. I pumped up the tires and everything. It was so awesome to be moving around again swiftly, in such a familiar, happy way, even with a mask. But, my enthusiasm for renewed mobility and a change of scene was soon exchanged for despair. I wasn’t emotionally prepared for the heaps and heaps of furniture sitting outside of so many apartment complexes. There were also (many) single pieces strewn about, per usual, which is crazy in its own right,…

  • Silver Wayfair Chest
    Interviews

    A Chest Curbed by COVID Closures

    As I knelt to capture this picture, I heard a voice over my left shoulder. A woman, dressed in full scrubs, hair net and face mask, which was pulled down, stood on the far side of her car that was parked at the curb directly behind me. She asked, “You like it?” I say that I do, as I turned around to face her. “It’s a brand new chest from Wayfair. We got it for my mom, but we had to lower her bed because the mattress was too high. It didn’t fit.“ She went on to explain how they took a load of things to Salvation Army but that…

  • Audacious Ideas

    Let’s Begin at the End, Market That Is

    Lucy and I passed 7 trees on one walk last week. The city offers a free tree pickup service immediately following the holidays. There are some simple rules to follow: no stands, no decorations, no (fake) snow. (They’re also supposed to be cut into small chunks, but few seemed to get that memo.) This makes it easy for the waste haulers to send the trees to the compost pile, not the landfill. They break down, new soil is born. Trees have an end market: a place to go to recapture their value. Most furniture comes from wood, from trees. It’s treated and processed but its core is wood. Yet, wooden…