A visit to the CHICO joinery: where the handmade hammock frames are made

Bed, table, wardrobe, picture frame or decoration for the living room. We encounterwood in many different forms and designs. For us, material plays a key role in the truest sense of the word: We use it as the starting material for our hammock frames. And these are created every day in our CHICO joinery. Fritz is someone who loves to work with wood as a raw material. In the blog post, he provides insights into the CHICO joinery and reveals how many handmade hammock frames see the light of day there each month.

From the boards that mean the wolrd

Wood. Lots of wood. Whole stacks of dried boards. For us, these are the boards that mean the world. At least the CHICO hammock world. Including already cut to size components. And some heavy machinery. These are the most important props for the small work of art that our three employees in the CHICO joinery carry out every day: They produce handmade hammock frames from individual wooden parts. These can later be adorned with colorful cotton and polyester fabrics and give many people hours of relaxiation. To get there, however, a lot of work is needed. And Fritz is very familiar with these work steps. He is responsible for the rough cutting and brings the boards to the right size with the underfloor saw. He also prepares new wood for drying or dashes through the house with the forklift to fetch the required material. Meanwhile, his colleagues take care of the joinery or planing with the four-sided planer. Or vice versa. „Everyone here can handle any machine," says Fritz, "but now we all have our favorite area. It sort of crystallized out.“

200 frames per month

And this allocation works perfectly, because around 200 new frames leave the CHICO joinery every month. They all have one thing in common: They are made of ash wood from sustainably manages forests in Upper Austria, Salzburg or Bavaria. So the distances are short - that is important to us. The transport from the forest to us at the CHICO joinery takes less than two hours. To Fritz and his two colleagues. They love working with the natural product. „Wood is diverse. And that´s the great thing about it," explains Fritz. There are branches here and there. Or a special structure. You have to look carefully and work to get the best out of every piece. That is a certain challenge. But a nice challenge that Fritz is happy to take on.  

From bread to board

According to Fritz, people who are interested in this job should therefore have a good eye for wood, be communicative and have manual skills. And attention to detail is also important. Incidentally, Fritz always had this, because originally he didn´t work with boards, but with bread: The Mühlviertler is a trained baker and finally found his way into the CHICO joinery by installing windows and doors. And here he feels comfortable and at home: "We have a good atmosphere and a great enviroment, working together is just fun.“ When the work is done, a CHICO one of a kind is waitung for Fritz at home too:  his very personal CHICO hammock is in front of the house, at the foot of the Ameisberg. Including a cup of coffee and some time. And already Fritz is greaming about other spheres.