Kitchen & Bath Business - January 2021 - 72

LAST WORD

RECYCLING
PARTNERS

Where do you source materials for your projects?

A family business works to reduce building waste
and innovate in the industry

SAN DIEGO-BASED REFIND KITCHENS - founded by mother-and-son
team Juliann and David Berens - is hoping to revolutionize demolition and
building. A CIDQ and LEED AP designer, Juliann spent 16 years at her own
green design firm while spearheading the Tucson branch of the Arizona Green
Building Council.David - a 2020 NKBA Thirty under 30 - studied economics
and worked in environmental science before becoming a general contractor
and partnering with Juliann to build the zero-waste deconstruction and design
firm. KBB spoke with both to find out more about working as a family, their
passion for environmentalism and where they source their recycled materials.

Why is zero-waste design important to you?

ABOVE More than 4,000 pounds

of luxury building materials
were diverted from landﬁlls
and used in this mid-century
modern-inspired design. All
cabinets, all light ﬁxtures,
almost all appliances and two
faucets are reused or recycled.
Headshot photo credit: David
Berens
Project photo credit: PreviewFirst Photography

" Have you been to a landfill? It's eye opening to see where things go when
they 'go away.'Every bag of trash is just going down the road to be covered by
dirt. ReFind Kitchens is a way to do our part to reduce waste, reduce carbon
emissions and beautify our community. Good design and good for the planet
are possible and affordable. "
How is working with family? Fun? Challenging?
David: " The truth is my mom is also an absolute dynamo. She works incredibly

hard to make beautiful designs with repurposed materials. It is a next-level
creative challenge. I know a big part of why she accepted the challenge in the
first place was to work with me. I'm just grateful she said yes and has stuck
around for this long. "
Juliann: " We have had and continue to have very different roles to play in this
business. We respect and value each other's roles immensely. David conducts
business with integrity, truthfulness and transparency. As a mom, to have the
opportunity to work with my adult child has been a blessing. "

" We ask ourselves four simple questions that
inform where we get materials. Can we reduce
what we need to buy? Whenever possible, we
work with what exists. Can we buy reused, preowned, reclaimed, refurbished or salvaged? Can
we buy products from recycled feedstock? We
refer to CalRecycle's " Recycled Content Construction Products Catalog, " as well as search
out vendors who practice recycling. Can we buy
sustainably sourced new products? Here we dig
into the details to figure out how the company
manufactures its products and from where they
source their commodities. "
What is your biggest challenge right now?

" People just don't know that this architectural
reuse process is available to them. Homeowners,
designers and contractors don't know there is a
green demolition process that can be cheaper
for the client than traditional demo, produces
almost zero waste and takes about the same
amount of time. They also don't know buying
reused materials can bring higher quality at a
lower cost. "
What are your next steps in your business?

By ERINN LOUCKS

" We want to refine and replicate the ReFind
model. We think our model is a viable way to divert hundreds of thousands of tons of construction waste from landfills and build many, many
beautiful homes in the process. If you look at our
past projects, you would never know that all the
cabinets and many of the fixtures and finishes were
repurposed. That's the point. We want to make
deconstruct-design-build commonplace. "


/ JANUARY 2021 / KBBONLINE.COM / The official publication of NKBA (NKBA.org) and KBIS (KBIS.com)

http://www.KBBONLINE.COM http://www.NKBA.org http://www.KBIS.com

Kitchen & Bath Business - January 2021

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