Green Design Girl

NorthOnSixty @ IIDEX/NeoCon ‘08

[Reception Desk designed by Cohos Evamy. See next photo for info.]

One of the product highlights for me at last week’s IIDEX/NeoCon Canada in Toronto was discovering the exquisitely crafted works of NorthOnSixty, an eco.passionate team who work and design with the environment in mind.

Based in Dwight, Ontario, three hours north of Toronto and a few minutes from the majestic Algonquin Park, NorthOnSixty is an efficiently run woodworking and furniture making operation nestled on 100 acres of land. They sustainably manage their wood and also mill, dry and finish lumber. True to their their eco.friendly philosophy, the entire site is heated using their own scraps and sawdust while keeping a goal of zero waste in mind [impressively sending less than two garbage bags of waste to the landfill each week]. You can read more about their smart green operations here.

What caught my eye at the show was a binder full of beautiful images of their handcrafted furniture, most of it made using their own reclaimed wood, with the remainder being FSC-certified virgin wood from their own sustainably managed forests. NorthOnSixty offers their own designs, from modern to traditional, but they also create custom-made and built-in furniture.

For customized work, you can choose from a grand selection of over 20 in-stock Canadian species of wood. I personally love the concept of reclaiming wood and other objects, so I was excited to hear that they often collect and use materials salvaged from rivers, lakes, barns, factories and other types of structures. To complete your customized pieces, they offer the option of using low-VOC finishes such as milk paints, waxes, natural latex and oils.

NorthOnSixty has a great selection of other furniture and home décor items, beyond the gorgeous tables that I’ve posted here, so you can expect to see more of their eco.beauties on Green Design Girl in the months to come.

Another view of the Reception Desk designed by Cohos Evamy, this one featured in the foyer of the design firm’s Toronto office. Made using FSC-recycled Douglas Fir, the strips of wood are laminated using water based glue and splined at the corners with FSC-recycled Elm.

The beams for this Reception Desk “were salvaged from the old Alcatel wire factory at Eglinton and Laird [in Toronto] in 1996 when approx. 2 acres of buildings were demolished.” Making me love this piece even more, “the steel veil was fashioned from salvaged steel taken from the mezzanine floors during the Demolition of the Nelson Brothers Hamilton Steel Refinery in 2005.” Green, clean and modern, yet rich with so much history. I’m in reclaimed Heaven.

The contemporary Trestle Table. The above one features a table top made from Hemlock “thrashing floor boards”, circa 1855 [I was amazed to find this 1882 New York Times article on the subject]. The wood is finished using mineral oil and wax. The steel base is made of hollow steel tube with welded joints, all finished by hand and then waxed.

The Trestle Table is available in a variety of FSC-certified wood species and finishes.

This Trestle Table top was made using a recycled slab of Oak, giving it a more rustic and organic feel than the previous two versions.