The materials that make up our homes often end up in dump yards.  However within these discarded materials lies abandoned beauty – top class material – native timber. From recycling centres on the North Shore pieces of suitable rimu were slowly collected over weeks, remnants of houses from the 1950s and 70s. These pieces of rimu were pieced together to create a cabinet.

The characteristics of the recycled rimu gave an abundance of detail and features. Pieces of wood that had once formed joists, skirting boards, and fascia boards showed their history with the patterning of aged nail holes. These marks created a patina of tool use interwoven within the rimu grain. Harlem Oil with silk finish was used to revitalize and expose the rimu grains. This combination of history and natural beauty enhances the uniqueness of the object, and gives it a soul. 

Off cuts were used on one corner to create a parquetry.  Small individual pieces created by the process of creating the unit, come together to form a mosaic and illustrate cradle to cradle principles; trees that were milled to wood, became a house, that then became pieces of wood, that then became an object that contains further pieces of its own offcuts.