Story
Our Lanark Sideboard, available one, two, three, and four drawers wide, is a year-in year-out shop favourite. It is solid, balanced, moderately rustic and exceedingly practical.
It's about as flexible a piece fo furniture as you're going to find. Style it up with books and decor on the basket-yearning shelf below. Layer in a lamp and mirror to create a sweet vignette above. And at 15" deep, it's a tidy, relatively small, footprint. Works great inside an entryway, in a hallway, against the stairs, under a tv, and with more than enough visual mass to hold its own as a sideboard or server, it's great in the dining room too.
Characterized by its rich texture, the component parts are individually hand hewn prior to assembly. It's a convincing, satisfying effect. The tell tale tool marks are deeply integrated, creating a sense of real personality, rather than mere affect. It's a feature of the tools; you can not hand plane each and every inch of a finished piece. The tool won't fit into the corners!
Dimensions
• One Drawer: 23" wide x 15" deep x 35" tall
Particulars
• Material: Clear pine
• Hand fit mortice and tenon joinery
• Proud fit through-tenon pegs
• Dovetail drawers
• Treatment: Hand hewn
• Finish: Lacquer clear-coats water based stain
• Colour: Antique Cherry stain
• Knobs: Black painted hardwood knobs
• Design: Emporium Studio
• Origin: Quebec
Personal Note
Growing up in a furniture business, it seemed perfectly reasonable that I'd move into my first home with a generous furniture collection at my disposal, including this very piece, a two drawer wide Lanark Sideboard (mine in black). It was a tiny bachelor apartment, the kitchen was a fridge beside a sink beside a stove; no counter space whatsoever.
This sideboard was my counter. Cutting board, coffee maker, and over-used sandwich press on top; cutlery and kitchen gadgets in the drawers; consumables on the shelf. I had that place for one academic year, and the sideboard served me well. And then I moved house, six times in the subsequent decade.
The thing about the sideboard is, it fit perfectly into every home. Here as a counter, there as a server, setup with my record player in the next place. I don't remember all the permutations, but I do remember I was happy to have it.
Right now, as I write this, it's in my family home. My son stuffs his soggy mittens into a basket on the shelf. His mum has an impressive sunglasses collection in one of the drawers, and I dump receipts, car keys, and pocket change into the other.
It was a rustic piece to begin with, and now it's really, really rustic. You might even say "thrashed". My folks, lacking my attachment to the patina, comment once in a while that it ought to be refinished. It would certainly finish up well. It's solid as the first day and the drawers are still great. That patina, though. It's is hard won – like my own – and no less charming.
—R.P.
