Do you provide free quotes?

Yes, if you want we can give you an estimate or a quote if we have enough detail, just email us at info@empatlka.com some rough dimensions and a sketch and ideally some pictures of the area you have in mind and you will get a quote very quickly by email. If you are happy with the estimate then we can come and visit you when it suits you and talk in detail.

How reliable are your carpenters?

We are very reliable, stick to start times and days agreed, we do what we say we will do, we turn up on time every day in order not disrupt your schedule. And we are there throughout the job, not disappearing for one day to do something else.

Do you provide drawings?

Yes once we receive your deposit, we provide you with a hand drawn from scratch 3D computer scale drawing precise to the millimetre for you to check how it looks and to see if you are happy with the dimensions. If you like you can make any changes until the drawing is perfect.

How do I know you will do a good job?

Before I buy anything I read reviews so I suggest you do the same, we have over 100 independent testimonials on the internet. Please have a look at our testimonial page to see what our clients say about us

You call or email us, we asses your needs and give you an estimate or quote, then we arrange a time to come round and visit you, ask you more questions in detail to find out exactly what you would like, listen very carefully to your ideas and offer design ideas and solutions to best use your space and needs. We go away, email you a final quote. Once you decide to go ahead, we take a small deposit, then send you the drawings, once you have agreed the drawing we can book your place in the diary and we agree a start date. We then turn up with the materials and tools and build your units, then once built we paint them or oil them. Then once we are totally finished and you are delighted, only then do you pay us the balance, lastly if you feel testimonials have helped you choose us, please help us keep them fresh and leave us a testimonial here: https://plus.google.com/101927655300158702077/about?hl=en&review=1

Are you going to make a big mess in our house?

We understand that your home is precious and we do everything we can to make sure we leave it in the state we found it. All our materials are cut to size by a specialist cutting company before being delivered to your home, so minimal cutting is required onsite, even then we cover and protect the floors, cover your furniture with plastic sheets, use dust extractors connected directly to power tools, we even use a fine dust and chemical extractor for really sensitive areas, this is well over the top but we like to do the very best we can and offer the best service, and when the work is all finished we take all our rubbish away and give your place a clean.

What materials and finishes do you offer?

Our units are built of quality Medite FSC certified MDF wood then painted, or made of wood veneer we can oil or use matt water based clear varnish, and also melamine coated wood as typically found in kitchen units. We are also pioneering research in alternative healthier eco friendlier materials, we are the first UK fitted furniture company to use UK sourced strawboard which is totally natural and bound with no glues at all to make our bespoke furniture, we can build your units out of formaldehyde free MDF too, we also use recycled plastic sheeting for decorative purposes with lighting behind and recycled glass as well as many other sustainable materials and finishes to find out more please see our eco page.

Do you paint the units and what colours do you offer?

Yes, we use the best quality professional waterbased DULUX and Farrow and Ball eggshell semi matt white paint . If you would like the eco option using more natural paints please see our environment page. We mostly use white but can paint any colour you like (If you would like to paint your fitted furniture we can offer you free advice).

Do you spray the units and do high gloss?

We can arrange to spray the doors and outside visible parts and make the internal carcass of a white or other colour melamine coated laminate.

Are your charges transparent?

All charges are stated in advance in the final quote, you know what you will pay from the start, everything is listed in the quote. Only handles are optional and to be supplied by you or us, also parking is extra, so they are priced separately. All of which is clearly stated in your quote.

Does your service represent value?

For the quality of service we offer from beginning to end we offer outstanding value, we take great pride in producing only the best bespoke furniture that you will be proud to own for years to come, we offer a 2 year guarantee on our work, we are endorsed by various independent certification bodies, we take customer service very seriously, we understand that there is more to producing furniture than wood and screws, your total satisfaction is our number one priority, but don’t take our word for us see what our clients say.

How flexible are you once the work has started if something needs changing?

Our craftsmen all speak good English and have a great deal of skill and will do everything they can if you feel that something needs adapting, for example you change your mind about how many shelves you want, or the spacing between them, then if it is possible we will do what we can to please you, either free of charge or at extra cost depending on what it is.

Can you fix stuff in my home?

Yes if you need anything fixing in your home while we are there making your fitted furniture, if we can do it we will help you out. I like to offer a service that I would like to use myself so for such things as hanging pictures, fixing doors that don’t close and generally anything wood related tell us when we come to measure up for your fitted furniture.

Do you use real wood?

We use real wood veneers or plastic laminates that look like wood but not generally solid wood, we work with close associates who use solid wood, just ask us for contacts.

We don’t do bathrooms but if we are already working in your house doing other fitted furniture, we will consider any storage you would like for your bathroom.

I have sockets where I want my fitted furniture how will you deal with this?

If you have an electrical, phone or TV areal socket that is ok as we can cut a hole in the back so you can still access them, we can move electrical sockets around if they haven’t got far to go. Phone sockets we can more if there is enough spare wire.

Do you make kitchens?

No we don’t make kitchens but sometimes can make units that go in your kitchen such as a bookcase.

Tristan Titeux Introduces his first Pioneering project “Stram Straw”

Home » Blog » Tristan Titeux Introduces his first Pioneering project “Stram Straw”

Tristan Titeux’s journey to find the ultimate currently available eco friendly materials culminates in his first fitted furniture project entitled “Stram Straw”, made in April 2011. See the video here or just below: http://youtu.be/eO8ea6pf8JY

“In November 2010 I realised I needed to follow my dreams and that was to show you that it is possible to make a difference in the world just by the simple everyday choices you make. We live at a very special time in history when we have so much choice. 20 years back, we had no choice, we just had to choose electricity generated by fossil fuels and that was it, today we can choose totally renewable electricity for only as much as 70 pence more per week on average, it makes choosing green energy a totally logical and affordable in my mind. The trouble is that we think that if it is eco it must be more expensive, I think even the poorest people can afford 70 pence extra per week for GoodEnergy. I mean what is 70 pence these days, that is the price of a cheap loaf of sliced bread, (not that I am saying you should buy cheap bread, but a lot of people do). We can go to the shop and choose organic milk or we can have standard milk, we can buy ethical chothes or not, we can buy fair trade or not, everyday we have a chance to vote, we have a chance to vote for a better world.

The power is in our hands, not in those who we think are in charge. Money talks, we can use ours to guide human kind towards the world we want for our children.

We are in charge or our world, the consumer is in charge, not the governments and companies, we blame governments and companies, but we should be looking at ourselves to solve these problems and not another source that we cannot control. We can’t directly control what a company does or what a government does. We only have one vote, and as we know that means nothing these days, but every day, numerous times a day we are given a vote, so I urge you to be more curious about your voting choices, find out what your materials, furniture, food, clothes are made of, where and by who?

Would you send you 10 year old daughter to work in the factory at the end of your road for 12 hours a day? I suspect not. So why should you accept products that have been made in such a way by someone else’s child!?

White floating shelves made with straw

Tristan Titeux’s first Pioneering project “Stram Straw” made with straw, a waste material. Long strands of straw bonded together with no glue.

So this takes me onto my first pioneering fitted furniture project. What is pionerring about “Stram Straw”? No one has ever used this material in furniture or fitted furniture before. It is actually a house insulating material, so no one would be crazy enough to want to use it for furniture anyway.

But I look at things differently, I start with the material then see how I can use it in my fitted furniture design. When I saw this Stramit strawboard at the “EcoBuild” show this year I jut fell in love with it, I touched it, stroked it, smelled and took pictures of it, if you see me doing that, you know I have found something good. I had found it earlier on the internet while I was doing my research for my straw board article and what really caught my attention was firstly that it was made in the UK from waste straw, and to finish it all off it was not bonded with any glue, it is just pressed at high pressure, it is very dense, you would not think it but it is, the outside is cladded with a thick art paper just to keep it together and this is glued on with minimal glue, a completely different thing to using it on the inside to bond the straw together.

Cut boards of strawboard

Stramit Strawboard cut lengthways the strongest for shelves and cross cut the pretiest if you are leaving it exposed like I have but weaker.

Finished shelf made with straw

Here is the shelf finished with paint on the top and bottom faces and a natural plant based oil on the front straw part.

Although it is very dense and pretty strong due to it’s thickness of 58mm, it isn’t super solid and you have to find the right application that is suitable for it, and that is what I did. It could be made stronger by cladding it with 4mm thick hardboard too, hardboard is an amazing material because it is widely available and uses no glue to bind the fibres either, again just incredibly high pressure a bit like making very thick paper. My aim is to promote materials like this that either use no glue to bind the fibres together or at least a natural glue made of plant based materials that can be composted or burned at the end of it’s useful life.

Straw is a by product of the food industry and 2 million tonnes of it is wasted every year in the UK. Instead of taking that and burning it inificiently to make fuel, lets make something with it, such as strawboard, then when we have finished making something with it, then we can think of burning it, but the other way round does not make sense because you are skipping important steps, “The Renewability Steps”, these steps are, Reduse, Reuse, Remanufacture, Recycle, Burn (make energy) or better still use directly to heat our homes as this is more efficient than using it to make electricity.

We used low voltage and wattage LED strip lighting with wires hidden behind hardboard panels that create a false back and a switch conceiled inside the bottom of the lowest TV shelf. The low power LED light adds life to the shelving and doesn’t consume much electricity.

White shelves with recycled plastic panel

Recycled plastic with low power LED light shining through to give life to the shelves.

We used recycled plastic panels sitting infront of these lights as a design feature. The plastic is made of confiscated elicit CD’s and DVD’s crushed into pieces and suspended inside melted recycled office drinking fountain water bottles, the recycling process uses minimal processing and melts the plastic just enough to blend the materials together.

Eco seal and empty reusable tube

EcoSeal Flexible Filler with re-usable cartridge.

We used EcoSeal flexible filler around the edges of the shelves to make them seamless and look really neat and professional (as we are!), we use flexible filler to join to foreign surfaces together as it avoids cracking. EcoSeal is waterbased and low VOC, it still uses petro chemicals though, but the fantastic thing about it is that the outer cartridge which is thick is totally reusable. Ususally once you have used a catridge you throw it away but this one has the flexible filler (mastic) inside a thin container that looks like a giant pate sausage you see in shops with a metal clip at each end. Then when all the mastic is squeezed out, you are just left with a very small amount of waste compared to the traditional type of mastic/silicone containers. It is great to see companies like Geocel coming up with positive sustainable solutions, well done!

Where flexible filler was not required, we used a natural chalk based powedered filler by Auro.

Natural chalk based filler by Auro.We used Auro paint and oil because it is made of natural plant based materials such as linseed oil and orange oil, their factory in Germany uses wind and solar power to run part of it and they collect rain water to wash out their machines, they harvest linseed from crops close to the factory. I like things that are as simple as possible and use natural materials that are renewable.

Pot of natural Auro eco paint