Knock on Mink's wood

Thepsawarin Tapienthong, one of the winners of the Talent Thai Award, can make any corner of the home restful and serene with her wooden Mink’s decor. Retail success on Facebook led her to quit her old job two years ago and move into stationery and wooden furniture.

It was a wristwatch with a wooden dial and a lamp that resembled tree roots that won the 2012 Talent Thai Award. “I was working as an account executive, but I was also making elaborated ornaments by hand and selling them on Facebook,” she says.

Admitting she has no art skills of her own, she teamed up with a Silpakorn University product-design graduate to start making wooden furniture and home-decor items.

Now she’s got a shop called Mink’s in the Ekkamai Mall, laid out simply as a living room but boasting a coffee corner as well.

Her products are minimalist, clean and practical, as well as being small enough to fit in any urban apartment. A lot of them involve surprising transformations, like the tree root sprouting a lamp, a thumb drive that looks like a polar bar and a pencil holder shaped like a house. She primarily uses pine, ash and walnut wood from overseas, retaining their natural shades.

“I like to emphasise simplicity and mellowness,” Thepsawarin says. “I prefer pine and ash because they’re inexpensive and look clean. I’m paying more attention to function lately – I’ve got a wooden bicycle stand that can double as a bookshelf or coat rack. And I’m trying to introduce ‘wired wood’ to the local market, like zebrano, which has a grain that resembles zebra stripes.”

Then there are a garden bench, table lamps, wall clocks with wooden hands, tote bags made from Japanese linen and attractive notebooks with graphic designs, also from Japan.

And Thepsawarin reserves some space for her designer friends to show off their leather accessories, fabric shopping bags, postcards, jewellery and even vintage Polaroid cameras.

Thepsawarin welcomes requests for adjustments in the size and material of her furniture.

 

PINING FOR  HOME

>>Mink’s is located in Ekkamai Shopping Mall on Ekkamai Soi 10. It’s open daily except Monday from 11.30am to 9pm. 

n Call (02) 714 2047 or visit www.Facebook.com/Minkislove.