Origin, Material & Craft
25 articles
Tenon, dowel, screw: what wood joints reveal about quality
Furniture rarely breaks in the middle of a part. It fails at the points where two parts come together. That is why the type of joint says more about…
Oak, ash, walnut: three woods compared
Oak, ash and walnut together account for most high-quality furniture. They differ in colour, hardness, figure and price – and none is fundamentally…
What a cabinetmaker checks first when buying furniture
Anyone who has done a cabinetmaking apprenticeship looks at a piece of furniture in a particular order. It is not the form that comes first, but the…
Solid wood, veneer or wood effect: how to tell the difference
A piece of furniture can look like wood in three different ways, and only one of them is wood all the way through. On the surface the difference is…
Teak root: how a piece of root becomes a table
Teak is the wood of Tectona grandis, a broadleaf tree from the monsoon forests of South and South-East Asia. Its heartwood contains a high…
Borosilicate Glass: Why There Is More to It Than Heat Resistance
Borosilicate glass is glass to which boron trioxide has been added. This ingredient fundamentally changes a single physical property: when heated,…
Cement as a Home Material: Raw, Calm, Surprisingly Easy to Care For
Cement is not a material but a binder. Limestone and clay are fired together into clinker; the clinker is then ground with a little gypsum into a…
Selenite in the Home: The Pale Stone Beyond Crystal Healing
Selenite is a crystal form of gypsum, chemically calcium sulphate with bound water. It forms where saline waters evaporate and the dissolved…
Agate: Why No Two Slices Are Alike
Agate is a variety of chalcedony and therefore a form of quartz. It forms when solutions containing silica penetrate cavities in volcanic rock and…
Caring for Travertine: What the Stone Needs and What Harms It
Travertine is easy to care for, as long as two properties are taken into account: it is porous, and it consists predominantly of lime. The first…
