Flat-Pack Doesn’t Have to Mean Disposable
At Bothy.Studio, we believe flat-pack can be better
Flat-pack furniture has a reputation problem — and it’s not entirely undeserved. For decades, it’s been shorthand for mass-produced, short-lived furniture that’s easy to buy but hard to love long term.
At Bothy.Studio, we believe flat-pack can be better: designed for efficient shipping, easy to assemble, diassemble and reassemble, to stay with you as you move through life.
The Old Flat-Pack Problem
We’ve all been there: the box arrives heavy with panels and hardware, instructions printed on newsprint diagrams. You wrestle with tiny fasteners and paperboard edges, and after a few moves — a corner chips, a bolt spins loose, and the piece becomes landfill.
“Its disposable nature promotes a culture of wastefulness … it can rarely be passed down or recycled.”
As Treehugger once put it, “Its disposable nature promotes a culture of wastefulness … it can rarely be passed down or recycled.” That throwaway mindset grew out of convenience — furniture designed for low cost, easy consumption, fashion cycles not longevity. The idea of flatpack itself was not flawed; but the execution was.
Flat-Pack as Design, Not Compromise
The original flat-pack concept was about access and efficiency: making good design affordable to ship, store, and assemble. What we’re doing is bringing that idea back to its roots — strong materials, intuitive design, and a belief that things should come apart as gracefully as they go together.
A piece that can be assembled easily should also come apart easily — without losing strength, precision, or dignity.
Moving House, Keeping Home
The best furniture travels with you. It remembers the rooms you’ve lived in.
We design our furniture with real life in mind — and that means movement.
People move. Renters shift apartments. Families grow. Studios relocate. Your furniture should ease those changes, not resist them.
Older flat-pack furniture often failed this test — glued edges, fragile particleboard, fittings that stripped after one reassembly. We use solid joinery, quality hardware, and durable plywood so that every piece can be taken apart, moved, and rebuilt many times over.
When designed well, flat-pack becomes modular. It’s not just about shipping flat — it’s about staying flexible. Disassembly becomes part of the design language: a feature, not a flaw.
The best furniture travels with you. It remembers the rooms you’ve lived in.
Assembly as a Kind of Ritual
We want the process of putting your furniture together to feel like an act of participation — not punishment. Our hardware is chosen for simplicity: a wingnuts, rampa bolts a few turns or the snap of a clip, and done. The moment of completion — that quiet satisfaction when the last bolt tightens — is part of the joy of ownership.
Easy disassembly isn’t just for moving; it also means you can repair, refinish, or modify your piece. It makes the furniture circular — designed for reuse, not replacement.
Build it once, live with it, move it freely.
The Sustainability Equation
Flat-pack shipping already saves space and fuel. One study found that shipping flat-pack furniture can reduce volume and emissions by up to 75 percent compared to pre-assembled equivalents. But sustainability isn’t just about shipping; it’s about lifespan.
A flat-pack table that lasts decades outperforms any piece that ends up discarded because it’s too heavy or inflexible to move.
At Bothy Studio, we source birch and fir plywood, finish with low-VOCs, and design for small-batch assembly right here in Nelson, BC. It’s not just about minimizing waste — it’s about making furniture that earns its keep, year after year, home after home.
Flat-Pack, Reclaimed
Flat-pack shouldn’t mean temporary. It should mean thoughtful: light to ship, easy to move, simple to live with.
At Bothy Studio, every piece we make — from shelf to table — is built with that in mind: a structure that can come apart and come back together, carrying its story forward with you.
Flat-pack doesn’t have to be disposable. It can be dependable.
In the End
The world doesn’t need more disposable furniture. It needs pieces that move with us — from first apartment to family home, from Nelson to wherever life leads next.
That’s what we’re building. Not fancy, just enough.
