In Service & In-Stock
When we explain what it means to be a B Corp to someone who might not have heard of the certification before, we often say that we aim to put people and the planet before profit. It is a phrase that gets used frequently in the B Corp community - one that we have tried to make our own, but usually return to for its alliteration alone.
We talk a lot about our environmental efforts here, but measuring our impact as a B Corp is, as it says, equally about people. This includes employees and community (think vendors, suppliers, colleagues, service providers, local organizations and neighbors) as well as customers or clients.
These past few weeks have been a chaotic and absolutely horrific time. For us, this has been experienced when looking out at the larger world as well as here within our studio as we navigate the everyday heartbreaks of life.
The routine and rhythm of work has been a salve. My (Chelsea) recent list of to-do’s included checking in with friends, writing my senators and connecting with you all via this newsletter. It is a practice that has taken me a long time to develop - to find a balance between what is in my heart and what might actually be helpful.
This fall, we have been working on some housekeeping items, all centered around service to our clients. We have been updating spec sheets and care instructions, working on a print piece for your mailboxes (sign up here) and last but not least, refreshing the in-stock section of our website.
As a business, we are committed to our made-to-order production process. It is what is most appropriate for our small island shop. It keeps our team, our overhead, and our footprint small, which allows us the most adaptability over time.
We want to make things that are truly wanted and we want to do so per order, allowing us to adjust sizes, colors and materials as needed, so that our finished pieces perfectly reflect our client’s vision. Though it takes planning, we think this way of working allows for products that endure as they have been considered over time and created for site-specific installations.
All of this said, we work in service to you all - our people - and we have learned over time how helpful it can be to certain projects to have pieces that can ship quickly. For this reason, when we updated our website earlier this year, we added an in-stock section and we have been working to keep it refreshed with a small selection of our work.
These in-stock items, which include furniture, lighting, rugs and objects, will ship from our Bainbridge Island, WA studio within a week. This section also includes some of our small items, like our beloved Utility Cards, which are always in-stock and can be especially useful this time of year.
We hope that these pieces will be of value next time you are looking for something special to complete a fast-moving project.
We love you all and hope that you have a community that you can reach out to and connect with right now. We’re here if we can help. It is an intense and overwhelming time in human history, and we can’t do it alone.