A New Space, Part VI: Celebrating Small Wins in Up-Cycling

As we work to transform an old mountainside space into a studio and shop, we’ve faced some challenges—but the small wins keep us going.

We’ve had to contend with the rainy season here in Korea. Heat and humidity. Wetness and mold wanting to sneak inside through the ground. Building work has gone slowly during this time, but not all on account of the weather.

The slownes is mostly on account of our choice to use materials for construction that were headed for the landfill — old shipping pallets, broken furniture, used bits and pieces. This up-cycle process takes time, to clean, take apart, and re-form. If you are interested in the details of that, you can see the process of taking apart those large wood shipping pallets:

The Beginnings of a New Space: Part II

and learn how to make a wood floor from a shipping pallet:

A New Space, Part IV: Pallet to Wood Floor!

In addition to our chosen slow process, there have been the usual issues that pop up as you are remodeling a space. Add that all together, and we were often just too tired from the work, heat, and humidity to actually make progress on what we meant to do.

But it seems we are emerging from the worst of the weather, and indeed we have a string of small wins over these last few months. This post then, is to share those small wins as we slowly make progress on bringing this herb tea studio / art studio / community space to life in an old mountainside neighborhood at the margins of Daejeon, Korea.

THE SMALL WINS

FRONT GARDEN — The empty concrete spaces that surrounded the building are now lush with a functional garden. We have herbs, vegetables, small trees, and other flowering plants.

The narrow strip of concrete that fronts the space is now about half potted plants, and half deep planter boxes built with the pallet wood. Climbing the window are Morning Glories and Baloon Plant. Most of the bottom pots are different Mints, Basils, Geranium, Saint John’s Wart, and some wild herbs and flowers that came on their own like Red Clover, Coreopsis, and Mugwort. We wanted the view from inside to feature this narrow corridor of plants too, so we made a simple hanji (Korean paper) screen that blocks the sun and street view, but still allows light and a view of the herbs. It also happens to create some beautiful shadows inside!

AWNING — A simple awning for the small patio area between the garden and west side of the shop is finished. This is also made with pallet wood and used pieces of plastic roofing. The materials made the design a bit of a fun challenge, figuring out how to get the strength required with only thin pallet boards. Our solution was to double up the boards on either side of the joists, to form strong enough posts.

This is a place where we can dry herbs (or laundry). When the weather gets cooler, maybe we can sit out here with a glass of homemade wine too. Wine making by the way, should start for us in about five or six weeks.

HERB STUDIO — Suhee has her herb studio, bar table, and micro office, and she’s already using it daily to do her blending and packaging. As the husband who wants to have a happy wife and a peaceful life, building this part was of course, the first priority.

Besides being a nice big worktable — also 100% made from those old shipping pallets — it is a pretty fabulous bar to sit at and enjoy toast and coffee in the morning, which we did recently with friend Changwoo Ahn…

Changwoo is professor of Environmental Science at George Mason University, very involved in community projects. He edited the recently published Art Science Collaborations for Environmental Sustainability for Elsevier, which we contributed a paper to. His visit was probably the first time I could laugh at the burden of writing that monster paper. A moment of big joy!

PALLET BUNK BED — A tiny guestroom is in the works. My brother was here for a few months in the spring — that’s him down there making a funny face in the ship captain’s outfit. Very fashionable. He is literally a handy man, so in addition to helping us with all sorts of construction, he also built this rad little bunk bed — also mostly from shipping pallets. Maybe I should stop saying “also from shipping pallets” and we just assume that almost everything is made from that huge pile of pallets we got this past Winter unless otherwise noted?

At any rate, this was actually supposed to be his bed while he was staying. Though it’s not yet finished, I’ve already claimed it for afternoon naps. Thanks, bro!

COMMUNITY SEATS — One of the first days here, I heard a noise outside, someone was breathing really hard. I looked out and saw an old woman sitting on the curb with her little grocery cart beside her. Apparently she had just walked a distance up the hill. As I paid attention to the street throughout the day, I noticed it is like a highway, not for cars, but for our elderly neighbors who walk daily from their homes on the hillside, to and from the traditional market street — which has an amazing tofu shop, by the way.

These neighbors often sit down on the curb in front of our space to take a break. So Patrick thinks, “well, that’s not right. They should at least have a seat, if not a little oasis to sit in.”

The two chairs we put here were saved from the trash heap last year and have a good coating of outdoor varnish on them. I am still working on the oasis part, but it’s coming along. For now these two seats have become a hot spot, not just for people on their way from the market, but also for neighbors just sitting for a chat. Putting the seats and planter boxes here was a simple gesture, but I have lost count of the number of people who have thanked us profusely for it.

Sometimes the simple gestures are the most powerful.

One might say that the people who sit in those seats are not exactly our kind of customers. This is true. It is doubtful that most of them would want a pot of herb tea. But this is a neighborhood. Those people live here, along with us, and all other kinds of people from different walks of life. We are all trying to figure out how to live a good life, and if we really want that good life to materialize, we should probably look out for each other.

I hope we can find more small — and big — ways to work sustainably while also looking out for each other while we are here.

That’s the good life, isn’t it?

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Question: The ‘taking a break’ chairs are one way that relate to very local conditions here. Are there small interventions have you noticed, that are simple and yet have had some positive effect on you? Are these easy to replicate elsewhere?

Next Week: We get back to — and maybe finish — the travel series on Mojiko, by taking a trip a a local liquor store … with a middle school student. How does that work out? You’ll have to see next week.

Another Story: The first writing in this ‘New Space’ series was on being an artist, and getting kicked out your home and shop at the same time. Read about how we responded in the confines of a system where this so often happens.

The Beginnings of a New Space, Again

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