American walnut5 min read
Why American walnut
Of all the hardwoods we could have chosen, walnut is the one that argues best with aluminium. A note on grain, colour and the way a material earns its place.
A bench needs a top that can take a life of being sat on, leaned against and moved. It also needs to hold its own next to a slab of anodized aluminium. American walnut does both.
Grain with something to say
Walnut is a temperate hardwood with a straight-to-wavy grain and a colour that runs from pale sapwood to deep chocolate heartwood. Worked and oiled, it develops a depth that photographs never quite catch. Against the flat grey of aluminium, that warmth reads as almost architectural.
A material that ages in the right direction
Some materials only ever look worse with time. Walnut is the opposite. It mellows, the tone evens out, and the surface takes on the soft patina of something used. A scratch becomes part of the object rather than a flaw in it.
“A scratch becomes part of the object rather than a flaw in it.”
We finish each top with oil rather than a hard film, so the wood stays open to the touch and can be refreshed by hand for decades. It is the opposite approach to the sealed, disposable surfaces the material replaces.
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