A curved fronted sideboard with a finely fluted scorched black front and a pale timber top and base, with a pale timber armchair in front, a pale wall panel of dark sculptural forms above and a tall floral arrangement beside it.

Pleat

Pleat is a sideboard by the English fine furniture maker Jan Waterston, its whole bowed front a sliding tambour of oak slats, steamed and bent by hand; each slat springs back to its own unique shape, which is where the jagged pattern comes from. The slats are scorched by Shou Sugi Ban and scrubbed to an open grain, and the supporting oak is bleached, a white canvas for the pattern; the tambour slides aside to reach the cabinet inside.

Waterston built the piece as a question, in his words, of what makes an object luxurious or valuable: the heritage of its material, its process of production, or its ethics. The photograph is his own, showing it at the Celebration of Craftsmanship exhibition in Cheltenham.

Jan Waterston

Jan Waterston is a fine furniture maker with a studio workshop in the countryside close to Birmingham, England. He trained in cabinet making through City and Guilds, took first class honours in furniture design and fine craft at Rycotewood, spent a year in residency at the Sylva Wood Foundation, and established his studio in 2017 to explore the junction between art, craft and design.

janwaterston.co.uk · Instagram

@janwaterstondesign.

The picture comes from this post on Instagram.

Researched August 2026. I credit each piece as carefully as I can; if you know more about this one, message me on Instagram.