Today, I wanted to share with our readers why I was inspired to choose the name Hand & Grain to be our brand’s calling card. The simple fact is it speaks to the two key elements that set our products apart: the “hand” of the leather and fabric we use to upholster our seating, and the treatment of the “grain” of the wood that makes our occasional pieces so satiny smooth. All of the materials we use are hand-selected and most of our pieces have surfaces that have been hand-finished. We’re sincerely proud of this.
Hand Means the Feel of the Leather
Given that all of our products are very tactile, we put extra effort into the surfaces that these two words represent, but we also take as much care with the interior construction of our furniture as we do with the all-important hand and grain. The word “hand” is used to describe the feel of hides because they can range from extremely taut to remarkably supple. You’d have to feel quite a number of hides to realize exactly how varied they can be and we’ve been running our hands over the surfaces of the finest leathers in the world for decades as we have sourced upholstery materials for our seating.
The treatment of hides that turns them into leather is explained in this primer we posted on our Musings last week in case you want to delve into the subject more thoroughly. It explains why saturation is important, what full grain means, what embossed leather is and the definition of buffed and sueded leathers.
Grain Refers to the Patterning and Strength of Wood
How important is wood grain? It is so crucial to the final quality of a piece of furniture that a true craftsman knows how to select the species of wood with the best characteristic for his or her project. This is always top of mind when I am designing one of our casegoods because the essential beauty it exhibits in the end is made more personable by the surface grain.
I’m betting most of you have always associated the word grain with the distinctive pattern that runs along the surface of a planed piece of furniture, and that’s because it is referred to as such by designers. Technically, it refers to the orientation of wood-cell fibers and the texture created by the size of and amount of variation in the size of the wood cells. Those of us who design furniture must always have this in mind, as the cells in the wood determine its strength.
When I am designing pieces like the Batari coffee table or the Nova console table, I am thinking about the wood I will use to bring the piece the most strength so it will last into future lifetimes, but I am also thinking about beauty. “Which wood will bring this design the loveliest surface detail?” I ask myself. “Which species will exhibit the finest satiny hand when it has been expertly sanded by one of our artisans?” The answers to these questions always point me to the choice that will result in the most exquisite piece I am possible of designing.
