Wood is a great natural material to work with. There’re so many things you can do to upcycle wooden items. For instance, you can repaint an old cabinet or table like Annie Sloan does or take a look at designers who make great furniture out of scrap wood, like Piet Hein Eek.
Then there’s Christiaan Oppewal, a Dutch designer who upcycles wood waste pieces and creates tables in a whole other way. The surface of these tables is one great melting pot of different kinds of wood pieces. Wood waste form the workshop that otherwise would end up in a fireplace. These tables are just stunning. I realy like the contrast between the front and the back of the tables. The top is smooth as silk and shows the wonderful wooden puzzle. The back of the table is more like a terrain, a landscape. Both sides do have a relationship, they both look like a map of a city.

Recently he started to work with wood and ended up making these fantastic and original looking tables: “The fact that I started to work with wood again is a coincidence. From a wood workshop I got bags full of wood waste for our woodstove. Looking at these great little pieces of wood I thought it was a sin to burn those wonderful different types, smooth planed pieces of wood. After a while the pile beside the stove increased dramatically. It seemed a good idea to make a box of blocks for my son to play with. But when the collection became bigger, I noticed that I started to play with these pieces myself (sorry son).”
Great to see how a certain circumstance can lead to a new path with new great ideas.

Design by Oppewal

Photos © Oppewal