Hardwood Art Boxes

Functional sculpture. Built from wood, finished like fine furniture.

 

These started as a curiosity and became one of my favorite things to build. There’s something about the process — the bandsaw, the grain revealing itself as the cuts happen, the way a shape emerges from a solid block of wood — that never gets old. Every box starts as a single piece of hardwood and gets cut, hollowed, reassembled and finished into something that functions as a keepsake box and looks like a piece of art.

 

The designs range from clean geometric and abstract forms to figurative shapes — animals, nature, organic forms. If you have something in mind, bring it. If you want me to find the shape inside the wood and surprise you, even better. Every box has one or more fitted drawers that slide with the satisfying precision of well fitted wood on wood — no hardware, no felt lining, just the wood doing what wood does when it’s cut and fitted properly.

 

These live on shelves, on nightstands, on mantels. People keep jewelry in them, keepsakes, things that matter. The box itself tends to become the thing that matters most.

 

The Finish

 

This is where Ember Ridge art boxes separate from everything else in this category. Most decorative wood boxes get an oil finish and call it done. These don’t.

 

Every art box goes through a multi-stage proprietary finishing process developed specifically for display pieces that will be handled, admired and passed down: Two coats of Danish oil are applied and allowed to cure for 7 full days. Then five coats of water based gloss polyurethane are applied, with 400 grit sanding between coats. A final coat of satin polyurethane is applied, then scuffed with 0000 steel wool and hand buffed with paste wax to a finish that has depth, clarity and a tactile smoothness that’s genuinely hard to put down.

 

Specifications:

•        Sizes range from approximately 5”x3”x3” to 10”x10”x6”

•        Custom sizes available

•        Fitted wood drawers — no hardware

•        Designs available: geometric, abstract, figurative, nature, animal, custom

•        Multi stage proprietary oil, poly and wax finish

 

Every box is built to order.