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Quality Home & Garden Furnishings... |
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| Bedroom | Living Room | Dining Room | Work/Office | Garden Furniture | Accessories | Interior Design | Worldwide export |
About Our Products Water HyacinthOnce an unmanageable weed, clogging up waterways over large parts of Asia, water hyacinths are now being harvested for a growing range of industries, particularly in Thailand and Indonesia. Also known as Java Weed, the plant produces beautiful blossoms and was first introduced into Thailand about 100 years ago as a water ornament. It can double its biomass in less than two weeks and quickly outgrows local flora and fauna, reducing the travel ability of canals, rivers and lakes, and clogging outboard engines and oars. For decades it was removed at some cost, and with only limited success, by the widespread use of herbicides. Beginning in the early 1990’s, a Government backed Thai research institute began to look into possible uses for the weed. Its potential readily emerged, and from 1992 onwards it began to be variously used as a fertiliser, an ingredient in fibre board, an agricultural fuel and in the wicker work baskets that are increasingly fashionable in Europe and Japan. Most recently it has been woven into a wave of modern Oriental and European designs that have made interior designers around the world take note. Part of the success in promoting these products has come from the extra income provided to rural farmers, who can make wickerwork and other items in the off season, and also from the positive image abroad of the water hyacinth as an environmentally friendly material. The furniture available through Tropical Interiors uses panels of water hyacinth or rattan, embedded in old teak wood salvaged from broken furniture and dilapidated buildings. Teak trees can only legally be felled in Thailand from specially planted areas, and in any case the wood must go through a long treatment process before it is suitable for making high quality furniture. The woven panels can be made from various braids of water hyacinth, some wound more tightly than others. These braids are treated to prevent decay and can then be either left in their natural golden colour, or dyed to provide other contrasts to the Teak frames. In these distinctive modern designs the classical elegance of teak wood is combined with the lightness of natural fibres to produce furniture with true space transforming power. Teak All of Tropical Interiors teak furniture uses only rediscovered wood. Many of our lines also make use of teak veneer plywood, the sources for which are Forestry Commission controlled. Whereas in the past Thailand and Indonesia were a centres of Teak logging, now it is banned in all but controlled plantations, and therefore there is very little unprocessed teak exported from these countries. In order to feed the teak furniture industry’s demand for the raw material, a country wide industry harvesting old and dilapidated buildings, rice barns and other structures has developed. In the longer term, of course, this finite resource will dwindle, and in preparation for that Thailand and Indonesia now has an extensive and carefully controlled reforestation program, of which teak planting is a major part. Many teak trees have been planted that will likely never be cut down, and where they will, the governments strictly controls the age at which the trees can be cut. Chinese Oak The Eastern or Chinese Oak (Quercus aliena) ranges across Eastern Asia through China, Japan and Korea. It grows to a height of 66' (20m) with a span of 50'. It has similar hardness characteristics to Red Oak but slightly less so as it tends to be harvested when younger so on the Janka hardness scale it rates 1210 vs. Red Oak's 1290. As well as its use in furniture it has been used quite extensively for wood flooring due to its relative hardness. The acorns have also been used in Asia as a coffee substitute and also after being ground and the high tannin content leached out, as a food thickening agent and flour substitute. It's the tannin content that gives Chinese Oak its abilities to resist rotting and fight off insect attack. The Colour of the heartwood is light brown; some boards may have a pinkish tint or a slight greyish cast, sapwood is white to cream. The Grain is open, with longer rays than red oak, occasional crotches, swirls and burls. Plain sawn boards have a plumed or flared grain patterns with low figuring. Quarter sawn have a flake pattern sometimes called tiger rays or butterflies. All our Oak items are stained with light oil for additional weatherproofing from the elements and this also gives a uniform appearance to the wood. Mango Wood "Amba" Mango (Mangifera Indica) is a beautiful blond hardwood which frequently stains during drying to form unique and wonderful colour variations. Mango is a very hard wood but is easy to work with and polishes to a glossy finish. Mango Wood is mainly used for decorative items to give a high class finish.    |
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