Back to business.

A chance meeting at a shopping mall has led to an exciting new opportunity -  over the next couple of weeks, I'll be spending time with the good folks at Oeko Furniture (Oeko Furniture) developing new ranges of furniture for their upcoming trade shows around Asia. It's going to be interesting and fun, getting to see how a real furniture manufacturer operates, and hopefully I'll come away from all this having picked up a trick or two about the various do's and don't's in the business.

Some things in my new world aren't that different from the law - my first day on the job was a 9am meeting on a public holiday no less (which in case you were wondering, started 1 1/2 hours late in typical Malaysian fashion).

The first thing that hit me was the scale of things - they operate two factories in Malaysia producing different ranges under the different brands for the group, and a visit to one of the factories was certainly an eye opener and quite different from the cosiness of the Chippendale workshop. As everything is mass produced, the emphasis is on mechanization and specialization. There is a different machine for everything, from drilling to sawing to jointing and finishing - ensuring that each and every piece is identical and fits perfectly together on the assembly line.

Stocks of timber ready for production

Planing and sanding

Perfect domino-like joints with none of the hassle

That's mass production for ya

The industrial finishing area smelt comfortingly of lacquer and varnish

It's certainly a very different way of looking at furniture. In a way, I think hubby and I have quite a romanticised view of the whole thing - we want to be in this industry because we want to be craftsmen and artisans, to make beautiful things with our own hands. Earning a living doing it, rightly or wrongly, is secondary and we've been concentrating our talents on the designing and making aspects of it, rather than the business side of things. The mindset of a Chinese businessman out to make a profit, which incidentally is in the furniture field, is very different. The cost aspect looms large, a not so distant spectre constantly looking over your shoulder and affecting the way you design and think about furniture and the short time I have spent with them has highlighted my inexperience in these things. It's rather daunting and hopefully hubby and I will one day find a way to make these two worlds meet.