Materials that age

Clients are right to ask what a surface will look like in five years. The honest answer, for the materials we prefer, is: different.

Oiled oak darkens. Lime plaster chalks slightly where it is touched. Unlacquered brass goes from yellow to brown to almost black around a handle, tracing the exact path of a hand.

The alternative is a finish that resists all of this and then fails at once — a lacquer that chips, a laminate that lifts. We would rather specify something that has somewhere to go.