Hello.
Big day today. We’re launching our first furniture collection.
Made in our Somerset workshop from British grown timber. Using traditional joinery techniques. And without plastic or petrochemicals.
About time.
Georgie is always going on about how long it takes me to do anything.
She might have a point.
The idea behind Sprig is at least as old as Oskoe. Almost nine and three quarters. Enough time to grow the timber for a bench leg!
After all of that time with the project on a back burner I’ve got notebooks full of designs, piles of prototypes, and my priorities straight.
As the Japanese say, 'go slow if you're in a hurry'.
Unplanning obsolescence.
We've lived at home with prototypes of Pencil Bench for years. I remember how delighted my eldest was to get the first one. To have her own appropriately sized piece of furniture.
It gets daily use even now.
Being carried around the house to wherever she needs a seat or a work surface. Employed as a kneeling table for play and for homework and the occasional TV supper. It forms one end of a make shift run for the guinea pigs behind the sofa. And has the toothmarks to prove it.
When we need another side table I borrow it back. Sometimes it is covered in toys. Other times in books. Next to the kitchen table it is probably the most used piece of furniture in our house.
The opportunity to experience a piece in use over time is incredibly helpful from a design perspective. To understand it’s presence. How it fits into the rhythms of daily life. Seeing how it works and where it doesn’t.
The legs are wider spaced now, and the corners less rounded. The whole thing is a little more loveable.
After it’s first life as a child’s bench, and imbued with the memories of those precious years, it’s something that might just be kept forever.
This idea is at the heart of what we are trying to do with Sprig.
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Furniture for family lifetimes.
By creating pieces that are adaptable, or permanently useful from day one. We set the scene for them to get all the way to day thirty six thousand five hundred and twenty five.
Of course they have to be built to last the journey too. So we use traditional joints and natural glues in preference to screws and plastic fasteners.
Using solid wood for our furniture makes this possible. It also means we're able to obtain our materials locally.
All in, these choices give each piece a real chance of lasting a family lifetime.
Head of Childish Things, Oskoe & Sprig
Ps. You can read more about our approach to creating furniture for family lifetimes here.
Pps. And shop it here.