walnut furniture
Black walnut is a highly coveted wood species has been used historically for high-quality woodworking, such as Robin Wade Furniture’s hand-crafted, functional walnut furniture. For Wade, walnut is a favorite type of wood with which to work. “Walnut is good, hard, dense, sands beautifully. That is exactly why it has always been such a good wood for making furniture,” he says.
“I’ve worked diligently to obtain walnut trees when they come down near my Slow Studio,” says wood artist Robin Wade, adding that the word is out within a 60-mile radius: If a walnut tree comes down, call Robin and he’ll be there with his trailer before you can say, “timber.”
Most manufacturers choose to use only the rich, dark heart wood. They rip the walnut’s white sapwood away and toss it aside, or, in an effort to increase yield, steam the entire batch of lumber because the treatment creates uniform color throughout both the sap and heart wood.
Wade believes in presenting walnut furniture with thick wood slabs in their natural state. “The change in color between the light sap wood and dark heart wood is really striking,” he says. “And its real.” Wade’s philosophy of keeping lumber as close to its natural state as possible helps him create very unique, organic pieces. Each of his black walnut furniture pieces—a walnut dining table, walnut bench, walnut console table—celebrates this wood’s wonderful natural character.
"I prefer to showcase this most beautiful species the way nature designed it, imperfections and all." —wood artist Robin Wade