Inside our North Loop workshop

At seven in the morning the workshop behind our North Loop showroom smells of linseed oil and fresh-cut oak. The first job of the day is always the same: checking the boards that arrived overnight for moisture before a single one goes near a saw.

Finished by hand, one piece at a time

Machines cut our joints to a tenth of a millimetre, but every frame is sanded and oiled by hand. It takes three coats and two days of drying for a table top to get the soft, low sheen you see in the showroom — there is no faster way to do it properly.

Every drawer is opened a hundred times

Before anything is wrapped, someone opens each drawer and door a hundred times, sits on every chair and rocks every table on a flat steel plate. If a piece squeaks, wobbles or sticks, it goes back to the bench, not into a box.

You are welcome to see it for yourself. The workshop is open for short tours on Saturday mornings — ask at the showroom desk, and wear shoes you do not mind getting a little sawdust on.