Tag: Handmade furniture

“Furniture-quality” is one of those phrases that gets used a lot and explained rarely. It’s worth pinning down, because the difference between joinery that’s merely fitted and joinery made to the standard of fine furniture is mostly invisible on day one and very visible after ten years. Here’s what it actually comes down to.

It starts with what you can’t see

The carcass — the box behind the doors — is where quality is won or lost. Well-made joinery uses stable, properly jointed materials that won’t sag, twist or telegraph movement over time. Cheap cabinetry looks identical when it’s new; the difference shows up as drooping shelves and doors that stop closing flush a few years in. If you can only inspect one thing, open a drawer fully and feel how it’s built.

Solid timber and veneer, used honestly

There’s a myth that solid timber is always “better” than veneer. In truth, a good maker uses each where it belongs: solid sections where strength, edges and feel matter, and fine veneers over stable substrates for broad, calm surfaces that would crack or move if made from solid boards. What matters is that the timber is selected for grain and colour and used with intent, not whatever came off the rack.

The finish is most of the work

People underestimate how much of a fine piece is finishing. A properly hand-applied paint or polish — built up, cut back and re-coated — is what gives joinery its depth and durability. It’s slow, it’s done in controlled conditions, and it’s the first thing to suffer when a job is rushed. Run your hand across a painted door: a quality finish feels close to glass, not like a wall.

Ironmongery and the small things

Hinges, runners and handles are where daily life happens. Soft-close mechanisms, solid well-weighted ironmongery and doors that sit with consistent shadow gaps all the way round are quiet signals that someone cared. So is the way a piece deals with the building moving around it — good joinery is detailed to absorb seasonal movement rather than fight it.

Why it costs what it costs

All of the above takes time, skill and good material, which is why genuinely bespoke joinery isn’t cheap. But the right comparison isn’t with flat-pack — it’s with replacing something that was never built to last. Made well, fitted joinery becomes part of the house, mellows with age and is still serving its purpose decades later. That’s the whole point of it.

If that’s the standard you’re after, our case studies show the kind of work we mean, and we’re always glad to discuss a project.

Handmade furniture is looking amazing right now. 

Many in the furniture design industry anticipated a resurgence in popularity of handmade furniture this year. I for one love it and have enjoyed seeing it appear more and more in interior shoots and designs online. But did it ever fall out of fashion? Handmade furniture is such a broad umbrella term full of different elements and styles. simply saying I don’t like it doesn’t fit. Not all handmade furniture is to everyone’s taste, but I know everyone has one piece they see, and it resonates uniquely. So, what are the magic elements of handmade furniture that designers yearn for and consumers become consumed by?  

The Story 

When another handmade furniture product is brought into existence, it is contributing to the layers of history that has come before. Greater than its contribution is its humble reference to how furniture used to be made and why. Handmade furniture shuns the cold heartless clone production of mass made. It instead celebrates the maker as an artist, highly skilled craftspeople concentrating their years of practice and toil into a fine artefact for your home. A standoff in production ideology that has existed for centuries. Customers fond of handmade appreciate this connection with the maker. It adds a layer of authenticity to a product. 

The Journey 

Similar to the story, The journey covers the process involved in making the product. Customers want to know the machines and methods used. See experts with their age old tools. The factory and bench set up with their favourite products being honed and refined. Images of spaces weathered and scarred from making furniture for decades. In knowing all this information it provides assurances to the customer that the product is a unique handmade labour of love. It demonstrates the work that really goes into handmade furniture. The ingenuity of a maker with his tools. The finesse of a sharpened chisel, the brawn of ripping lumber. 

The Material  

When I think of handmade, I don’t just think of the genius and craft behind the hands. I think of the material the maker has chosen to dedicate himself too. Handmade jeweller using fine metals and precious gems. Metal smiths hand pouring molten iron into casts enduring the blazing heat. Cabinet makers planing fine timbers like Oak, Cherry and Walnut. If a manufacturers ethos has been to retain a handmade approach to making and use skilled workers to make unique, beautiful products, you can bet the material will be beautiful in its own right. Our makers James and Paul have pride and pleasure in their work because of their beloved Oak. They make sure it is shown off at its best. 

Why the resurgence?

With social media and instant access to information these days, furniture makers can provide people with regular updates about their process and exquisite products. For many, this has been the key to realising the potential in handmade furniture and understanding more than the finished product. Designers and enthusiasts using handmade furniture in their interiors inspire the rest of us, posting thousands of photos every day. For many this extra depth of interest and seemingly timeless furniture design is what keeps handmade furniture re-emerging and trending. Iconic, traditional handmade furniture is so flexible in interiors made for modern living. they are often made of better grade, longer lasting materials like hardwoods. They do not reinvent the wheel designed for function first with ingenious systems that look beautiful. Hardware is high quality and furniture repairs/maintenance is possible making it a sustainable choice compared to other furniture products out there.

Bryn Hall furniture has been made in this workshop for thirty years. It is now made here under our own name.

For three decades Reeve & Co Interiors made the whole of the Bryn Hall range for the Phillips family — designed to their standards, made at Mickfield, polished at Mickfield, delivered from Mickfield. On the family’s retirement, the workshop that had always made the furniture took on the name. Nothing about the making has changed: the same benches, the same hands, the same standards. What has changed is that you now deal directly with the workshop.

The full range, with photographs of every piece and its standard sizes, is at brynhall.co.uk.

How the workshop came to make it

The Reeve family came out of the antique trade. There was a shop in Debenham, Suffolk in the early 1980s — a village historically famous for antiques in England — and work alongside it that included projects for the BBC, among them Lovejoy.

Through the 1980s the antiques trade was extremely buoyant, and there were not enough antiques on the market to satisfy demand. So the family moved gradually from dealing into reproduction and fine furniture, to service the demand from Bryn Hall and from customers around the world. Bryn Hall was the relationship that shaped that decision: making a complete range, year after year, to an exacting specification is a different discipline from making one-offs, and it is the discipline this workshop was built around.

To this day we continue manufacturing the best quality furniture, including the Bryn Hall designs, exquisite historical replicas and new, earnest, traditional work.

The classic Bryn Hall ranges

Denbigh

Denbigh cabinets are a firm favourite, encapsulating everything fine 18th century furniture should be: strong solid features, plains of beautiful timber and traditional hand made construction. The Denbigh dresser base, for instance, has:

• Raised and fielded panelled door fronts.
• Framed side panels.
• Cock beaded flat drawer fronts.
• Moulded details below the top and above the doors.
• Decorative moulded plinth and thumb nail profile to the top.
• Solid ironmongery including exposed butt hinges, solid brass knobs and swan neck handles.
• Beautifully made frame work precisely crafted around doors and drawers.
• Decorative cut out to plinth.

Oakamoor

The Oakamoor range is a classic, chunky, wholesome furniture collection. Not too much decoration — it is all about the wood and its simple, quality construction. The Bryn Hall Oakamoor base has:

• Simple historic frieze design framing the space between the legs.
• Strong and substantial legs with a small bevel on the inside edge.
• Quality solid brass swan neck handles.
• Traditional edge profile to the top with a simple decorative moulding below.
• Plenty of width in front frame pieces to show off the beauty and patternation of oak.

Pendleton

The Bryn Hall Pendleton table is a traditional country table with simple rustic charm and timeless appeal. A popular choice with our customers, often opting for draw-leaves so they can entertain further guests whilst retaining space when not in use. The Pendleton has:

• Quintessential farmhouse tapered legs.
• Optional Pendleton turned leg.
• Large top suitable for dining or a kitchen table.
• Available with various drawer options.

Seven further ranges — Ruthin, Montgomeryshire, Rowton, Windrush, Gothic, Coach House and Georgian — are shown in full at brynhall.co.uk/collections.

Made to order, and made your way

These are the details that are typical, but you can make it your own. We regularly make different door panel shapes, use different hardware, or simply make the cabinet to bespoke sizes and materials.

All our furniture is made to order. Every piece is tailored to your space and matched to its surroundings if required. Bryn Hall always made sure the customer had the perfect piece for their home, and knew which elements they could change — that principle has carried straight across. As well as items made to order, our bespoke service can mean:

• Pretty much an exact copy of a product you have seen in our catalogues, on our website or on socials, but with small tweaks such as different handles, a thicker top or a different shade.
• A one of a kind piece amalgamating a range of details from your favourite furniture designs, or a vivid idea from your head — including carved details, unique turnings, or storage for particular items. Our designers can help you bring this to life.
• A complete room scheme or project: traditional or bespoke kitchens, full height panelled walls, or bespoke contemporary cabinetry for bathrooms and hotels. These are just examples — our portfolio is extremely diverse.

Our furniture is hand crafted mostly in oak and cherry, however we use a range of materials and can often source more exotic timbers, or firm favourites like walnut and mahogany. We also use modern and sheet materials to improve strength and enhance decorative elements where necessary. This ensures your furniture will be around for years to come, and ages beautifully.

If you are unsure whether we can match your existing furniture, enquire today and we can supply samples to put your mind at ease and show off our ability in the finishing department. We can match furniture that is 100 years old to new reproduction pieces made the year before.

Where Bryn Hall ends and Reeve & Co begins

Bryn Hall is the freestanding furniture: tables, chairs, dressers, cabinets, beds and desks. Reeve & Co Interiors is the fitted work — panelling, libraries, alcove cabinetry and architectural joinery. Both are drawn, made, polished and delivered from the same workshop at Mickfield, in the same timbers and the same finishes, so a room can be made to read as one.

For freestanding furniture, see brynhall.co.uk or call 01449 710500. For fitted joinery, contact us at sales@reeveandco.com or call 01449 711782.

Ideas to update your space with painted furniture

Painted furniture can be the key to adding your personality to your home.

Painted furniture isn’t anything new and colour charts can often leave you daunted. When you get painted furniture right it can make your whole home feel fresh and new.

Bold.

I thought I would head up the first idea about painted furniture with the most intimidating approach. Very often we can get sucked into very pale and natural hues and tones for every significant product in a room. This is fine and obviously has great appeal and feel. But you can elevate this, allowing them to provide a classic back drop for adventurous statement pieces and contrasting colours. Obviously, I don’t necessarily mean fluorescent crimson coffee table within your so far shabby chic styled living room. But why not? Think about what bold colours work in places you love and places you’ve seen. Apply them to your own design projects.

Large plains of colour.

This does require some confidence, but it can have an amazing impact. You have picked a colour you really love, and are going to paint all or one feature wall in that colour. In a moment of unadulterated impulse, you colour match all your painted cabinetry in the same colour as your walls tying them all together in a vast swathe of monochrome. It essentially gives you a more interesting and personally charged canvas to start adding too with your own objects. Painted furniture and doors add a third dimension to your normally flat walls rather than looking like you have placed furniture against them. Light and shade nuance a single colour influenced by the furniture you install.

The trick to pulling this off is picking a colour that isn’t so subdued that such large amount of it will leave you feeling unfulfilled and disinterested. It cant be so bold it gives you a migraine or rejects any other creative moments you have in its proximity. A good strategy or starting point would be to start with a royal, dark or musky shade of a colour, such as dark blue or mustard. Then increase the brightness until it strikes the right chord and balance with you, your existing objects and your space. The British often get described as possessing a matching disease, but this approach most definitely turns heads.

Breaking up paint with timber

Here at Reeve and Co, we have a long history of manufacturing and supplying beautiful hardwood furniture, often Oak. We have a huge affinity and admiration for the character and depth of solid wood. However even we know that putting a material as gorgeous as Oak on a painted cabinet can elevate a piece. Celebrate its natural wonder. A painted Dresser can act as the perfect pedestal to show off the charms of pippy Oak. Either in the form of natural shelves or a dresser base top for instance. Mixing painted parts with timber or maybe other natural materials like stone, can create fun new shapes and styles. It can also highlight remarkable textures and patterns in your home.

Painting internals.

Finally, a more concealed approach to painting cabinets, but one no less effective when deployed. Painting the insides of cabinets whilst retaining the classic look and aesthetic to the outside. Very often we make painted cabinets which leave the internals natural such as a natural birch ply finish. However, I have seen an emphasis on making the inside painted and coloured even when it is always visible. Such as, glazed display units, open shelving, and bookcases for example.

It’s a great opportunity to continue a theme but also to provide a zip of new colour and introduce a theme within an adjacent room, tying them all together. Think about what objects the cabinet normally displays or houses and what colour could compliment them. Even cabinets that get heavy use such as bookshelves or regularly store harsh heavy objects can have matt finish paints applied. Fear of it looking chipped and ruined quickly is not necessary due to new technologies and toughness of heavier grade paint.

In Conclusion, when thinking about rejuvenating your home and are keen to add a splash of personality, fun and old fashioned charm, think about painted furniture options for inspiration. Having beautifully made and properly designed objects will ensure your painted furniture look better than ever, for longer.

Check out some of out painted furniture here including our 6 drawer Coffee Table and perfect Dresser.