Hear us out…
As well as beautiful hand-crafted bespoke and custom built wooden furniture Highwood furniture also produces a range of smaller items that can be found on our website or at local markets.
One thing we love about attending markets is the conversations that we have with people who, like us, truly love the tactile and beautiful nature of items made out of wood. One of the things that we love about our products is the high quality, and knowing that when we send them off to a new home we fully expect them to last a lifetime.
However; one comment we hear quite a lot when at markets is “they are too beautiful to actually use”
Why shouldn’t we have beautiful things to use every day?
And sure, when you use a wooden chopping board it does take a bit of a hammering (but nowhere near as much as a plastic one), and when you accidently put your carved wooden handled cheese knife through the dishwasher it doesn’t quite look the same after, or when your hand cut marquetry canoe paddle is used to push yourself of the rocks in the river it starts to show the signs of abuse. Or when you leave cup rings on your coffee table that has a bit of an impact too. But does this actually detract from the beauty of the product?
All of these are things that we have done. Those who know us will know all too well that we are not precious about our furniture or in fact any other of our belongings. To the point that we rarely put a coaster down before a mug. I know, there will be those who (arguably rightly) judge. Wooden items are made to be functional, and we enjoy them for this. Part of the pleasure of owning them is knowing that damage can be fixed, usually easily, and often without too much needed in the way of specialist knowledge or equipment. The only exception I can think of minimising damage from use is carrying a spare canoe paddle for those moments when I know I really will be using it to push against rocks - because taking chunks out of the edge does require a little more of a complicated fix.
We should have nice things to use every day. They enhance our experience of life.
It is possible to own them and use them forever, or as is more usual in our current culture, we can own items that we enjoy for a while.
For all that it can last a lifetime, a wooden chopping board, quirky pizza cutter, or bottle opener made out of wood doesn’t have to. If you were to select one of our items with the intention for it to have a limited lifespan, as one might with a plastic equivalent, surely it is better to be made from a material that will happily biodegrade when its use is finished?
Compare a wooden chopping board that could last you a lifetime but will biodegrade when you are finished with it, to a plastic chopping board that won’t last you anywhere near a lifetime but it will last for many lifetimes over once it goes to landfill.
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Or reach out if you would like to find out more about commissioning your very own piece of custom handcrafted bespoke furniture: counters for business premises, kitchens, tables, cabinets, fitted bedrooms, chairs, beds, wardrobes, shelving, sgian dubhs, jewellery, wholesale gifts, and many more. Design visits can be organised throughout Tayside; Perthshire, Angus, Dundee, and Fife. Online consultations are available for those based further away in Scotland and the UK.