Specie: Ash
Finish: Pre-Aging, Oil Plus 2C
Colour/s: Authentic #6, Pure
Dimensions: 1600mm L × 850mm H × 360mm D

This piece started as a question: how far could I push a steam-bent lamination before it stopped feeling structural and started feeling like a single continuous line?

Every piece of ash in this build started life as 2000x60x10mm recycled strips – nothing here was bought as a finished board. The legs are laminated from those strips, steam-bent and glued up to sweep from a low stretcher, up through the leg, and directly into the top rail – one uninterrupted curve on each side, no joint breaking the line. The top is laminated from the same recycled stock, ripped and thicknessed down, giving it a tight, repetitive grain pattern that echoes the vertical strips in the bent legs – so the whole piece speaks one language even though the top and legs were built through completely different processes.

Underneath, two slim drawers float in the gap below the top rail – barely visible from the front, finished flush, hardware fully concealed on Blum undermount runners. Half lap joints hold the main frame together, honest and unfussy, while the drawer boxes are through-dovetailed at the back – a small, hidden detail of traditional joinery in an otherwise pared-back piece.

Finished in Rubio Monocoat Pre-Aging Authentic #6, then Oil Plus 2C Pure. The Pre-Aging brings out a soft, aged warmth in the ash without pushing it dark, and the clear topcoat lets the grain stay honest – nothing hiding, nothing overworked.

The Aalto is a serving sideboard first, built for a dining room, built to hold weight and use daily. But it started, like most of my work, as a shape I wanted to see exist – and as proof that recycled offcuts can still carry a piece this scale.