This was commissioned for a tattoo artist’s shop as a waiting room bench for clients. The brief was open so we were given free rein on the design for the bench.

When we searched for the material to use, a local timber miller had a large board of spalted beech that due to the spalting* was proving hard to sell.

The bench is of simple construction with four wedge tenoned legs supported with rails between them. Once built the top is then scalloped, a texture created when a chisel hollows out the wood surface.

*Spalting is when fungi invade a timber for nutrients and leave behind black lines and markings in the wood. Often seen as a defect some furniture makers take to it as a detail.