TO SUMMARIZE, I'm building NON-TOXIC studio and bedroom furniture and I
want to lay out my plans and get some direction from those with more
experience. I'm pretty sick, have been for a while, I have chemical
sensitivities, so the little bit of outgassing from plastics or various
resins used in wood products is a problem for me. I have a small but
good selection of tools, some experience, and well ventilated work
space. I have supplied air and carbon filter masks so I'm not too
worried about exposure during construction but only toxicity of the
finished product in my home. Again, I'm sick and I have chemical
sensitivities, so please don't tell me how I'm worried about nothing in
my attempts to find lower toxicity building materials unless you're
also living every day in pain and look like you should be framed behind
a barbed wire fence at auschwitz. Outgassing/toxicity is my number one
concern in these projects.

Here's the PICTURES OF WHAT I'VE DONE SO FAR:
http://142.165.246.187/build/

I want to build STUDIO FURNITU
- several desks
- drawing table
- easel
- shelves
- paint booth (sandblasting cabinet design)

THe paint booth "prototype" I built works better than I had hoped, it
seems to make a perfect seal all around the glass and front plate,
turbine air extraction up in the attic suspended from rope is fairly
quiet, lots of full spectrum light, very happy with it except for the
formaldehyde emmissions (MDF), so it's on it's way to the garage right
now while I plan a version to replace it inside. Same with the
drawing/light table, love it but I'm going to re-do it in pine... I was
under the misconception that I could stop the formaldehyde emmissions
with a lot of latex paint, which itself may outgas small levels of
VOCs, lesson learned.

THe materials I want to use for all these items are CONSTRUCTION GRADE
SPF LUMBER, GYPSUM WALLBOARD (DRYWALL), AND PVA GLUE. I'm looking at
these materials for their non-toxicity and low cost, it'll require some
different construction to rely on an SPF frame for strength, covered
with drywall, everything sealed by spraying elmer's children's PVA glue
to seal it. I don't care at all what it looks like, most of it will be
splattered with paint, doodled on, used and abused, built to work and
not to admire. I can't find some of the other non-toxic materials out
there like pressed straw panels and to be honest I don't think they're
worth the cost in this case. I'm wondering if I buy SPF lumber from
Home Depot... is there anything in it besides wood? What will the wood
release into the air? You can smell lumber so it must release
something...? I've looked into cement board and reinforced gypsum
boards but they're not available in my area right now because of
hurricane-induced shortages. Still, if anyone could suggest a safe
gypsum product more suited to shelves and desk surfaces than regular
1/2" drywall let me know, I don't know a whole lot about drywall. I am
willing to live with a delicate board that needs lots of support if
it's safe and cheap though. I'm also trying to find natural gypsum
boards that aren't made with the flue gas desulpherization process, but
all the manufacturers tout it as a good thing because it's
environmentally friendly... as far as I can tell it's taking pollution
out of the air and trapping it in materials to use in my home?!

I also want to build BEDROOM FURNITU
- 2 pine armoires
- pine bench, flip-open storage

The requirment for these projects is non-toxic too, but the difference
is I want them to look good. I made the entertainment unit in the
pictures from pine panels. What kind of glue do they use to join the
wood together, should I be concerned at all? I'd like to use shellac to
finish it, which I believe is as non-toxic as it gets, but I'm not sure
about non-toxic stains and also non-toxic filler...?

Maybe the response from most to roll their eyes at the kooky
tree-hugging health nut hippie moron, I tend to get that fairly often.
I used to lay up fiberglass with no mask, wash my hands in laquer
thinner and then go eat a steak and have a beer like a manly man too,
but you change your thinking real quick when it all finally catches up
to you. All I'm looking for is some opinions I guess, I'm in unexplored
territory here and I've already screwed up and cost myself a lot of
time by using MDF which is totally unnacceptable in my living space.
I'm hoping for some direction... learn when someone tells me something
rather than by doing it wrong and wasting more time. Thanks for
reading.

SS