Turned Wood Table.
Lathe-turned ash with a brass collar and hand-sewn linen shade. The catalog’s longest-running wood lamp, and the argument that hand-turned columns can be a commodity product done well. Featured in House Beautiful, Apartment Therapy, Domino, Country Living.
Hand-turned, at catalog scale.
Turned Wood Table was the catalog’s reference for what a wood lamp should be. Lathe-turned ash, twenty inches tall, with a brass collar at the top of the column and a hand-sewn linen shade in natural off-white. The base was solid ash, weighted with a brass plate underneath.
The argument the lamp made was that hand-turned columns at catalog scale (rather than one-off bespoke) was the right business model for the studio. The lamp was produced by a small turning shop in Wisconsin that the studio committed to for the entire five-year run. The shop scaled to studio demand without industrializing.
It was the studio’s second-longest-running product. Five years on the catalog. It came off the line in 2019 when the small-shop turner retired and no equivalent operation was available to take over the work.
Hand-turn. Commit. Scale slowly.
Three decisions that made hand-turned wood work as a catalog product instead of as a bespoke novelty, and still inform how the network thinks about scaling craft work without industrializing it.
01
Single shop, multi-year commitment
The studio used one Wisconsin turning shop for the full five-year run. The shop didn’t have to industrialize because the studio’s demand was predictable. The lamps remained consistent because the same turner made every one.
02
Ash, not exotic hardwood
Ash was chosen because it turned cleanly, took the oil cure evenly, and was available domestically at predictable volumes. Walnut and cherry would have been more ‘designed.’ Ash was more honest to the lamp’s role as a workhorse catalog product.
03
Brass collar, not wood transition
The brass collar at the top of the column was visible. The hardware wasn’t hidden. The lamp’s construction was part of the design. Any cover-up would have implied something to hide.
Craft at catalog scale didn’t go away.
The lamp is no longer made. The principle (craft work can run at catalog scale when the studio commits to a single shop for years rather than chasing the cheapest bid) is the same principle that drives the network’s vetting standard for the small-shop installers it works with.