I love the warmth of timber and its natural quirks and imperfections, so these Australian hand turned lamps from Wildwood Designs really caught my eye.
“Each piece is unique to us and has been lovingly hand turned by our local wood turner who was thrown out of TAFE on the first day of a wood turning course because he turned up with a telegraph pole,” laughs Wildwood’s Juliet Barr.
Good, affordable lighting can be hard to come across in this country. If you want to buy online, even harder. I’ve heard Bunnings have some cool stuff going on at the moment, which I must check out, and I’ve been pretty impressed with Beacon too, having seen a lot of their stuff on The Block. What do you think of their latest limited edition Stockholm range, which is only available online? It’s all made from natural timber.
These natural wood pendants are $795.
Just like its name, Rabbit Trap Timber is unique. It’s a family run furniture business that produces handcrafted pieces from individually chosen, recycled materials; no table, stool or bench is quite the same.
Initially inspired by “a few pieces of timber full of rusty nails” – and a heap of character – Rabbit Trap Timber is now a full-time job for Justine Taylor and her husband Rabs in the NSW Southern Highlands. “I love it,” Justine says.
Central to their business is a commitment to the environment. The pair source material from old cattle yards, wharves and demolished warehouses, turning it into furniture that will “last another lifetime.” Offcuts become share platters, chopping boards and pilgrim stools, and the sawdust even goes to local farmers.
Theory of Willow are a husband and wife team making stylish and colourful homewares from recycled timber.
They started with 2nd Chance Tables, a custom-made recycled timber table business started by Chris Booth. Building on the concept of using recycled timber, he and wife Hien developed Theory Of Willow’s homewares range. “We incorporate colours, shapes and patterns into our homewares, which we feel compliment and accentuate the beautiful characteristics of recycled timbers,” says Chris. “Blending these elements results in striking, eye-catching products that otherwise might have been quite ordinary.”
A carpenter by trade, his love affair with carpentry started from an early age. Through the influence and guidance of his father and grandparents, he developed a fondness for building things from scratch. In 2012, Chris first tried his hand at making and selling tables using recycled and reclaimed timbers.
When he met a woman who was into tools, restoring furniture and rescuing interesting pieces, designer, joiner and cabinet-maker Christian Cole knew he was onto something.
Last year another dream was fulfilled with Fiona, now his wife, and Christian, winning the 2012 Australian Furniture of the Year Best of the Best Award.
They won the Best of the Best for their Coupled Curve Bedroom Suite (above), commissioned by clients from Caulfield and created using recycled Messmate sourced from a disused Victorian brickworks and 500-year-old and fossilised Redgum retrieved from a stone quarry!
Christian Cole, a member of the Australian Furniture Association, designs and hand makes solid timber furniture and architectural joinery using recycled timber or timber sourced from sustainable plantations. Fiona often researches the history of the recycled timbers so the timber character customers buy is not only in the timber patina and hue but in the stories of its past.
A country girl, Fiona’s grandfather and father instilled in her their love of native timber and taught her its special features. She would travel to clearing sales with her father and help restore and rebuild the treasures they found together. She continued with this as a hobby, so knew what Christian, a qualified cabinet and furniture maker, was talking about when he spoke of his passion for his work.
Bonnie and Neil have achieved a bit of a cult following for their fabulous homewares. THAT fluro pink watercolour table cloth was everywhere (including my table) last year.
I chatted with with one half of the Melbourne duo, Bonnie Ashley. She’s a textile designer whose partner, Neil Downie, is a carpenter. Their two very different skill sets have come together to create a homewares range that features both timber boxes and tea towels and somehow works perfectly!
“We’ve worked together (outside our day jobs) for a long time, so looking back, it seems it’s always been obvious to us,” says Bonnie. “It’s just happened naturally. We officially started in February 2010, putting together the range to launch in August that year.”
Bonnie says working with Neil is really fantastic! “It’s great having complementary but different skills – it helps us look at things from different viewpoints. We don’t need to explain things too much to each other, so we work quickly.”
Artisan printmaking meets timber craftsmanship in this new range of sustainable lighting. Quince founder Michelle Koop teamed up with a local Melbourne craftsman to extend her lighting range with a collection of ball table lamps in touch-me timbers and her own textile designs.
Each table lamp has a ball-shaped solid timber base in sustainably harvested Victorian ash, which has been handcrafted to Quince design specifications and finished in Danish oil for a contemporary edge. The spherical bases are the perfect accompaniment to Michelle’s hand printed shades in her signature borrowed-from-nature muted palettes and motifs.