Our friend, interior designer Hanna Puolakka from Muodoste Oy was working on the interior of a new restaurant, and she had visualised lightweight, cone-shaped pendant lights that would show craftsmanship and the beauty of genuine wood. The wooden lampshades would bring warmth to the dark interior, and bright light bulbs would also bring out the grain in the stained oak veneer.

Based on Hanna’s thoughts, we designed a scheme for the veneer cones with the bottom diameter of 35 centimeters. We wanted to use multiple veneer pieces for bending the lampshade to make the lamp interesting to look at from every angle. The seams add the artisan touch to the lamps, as the grain figures dance across the lampshade.

We used two layers of 0.6 millimeter oak veneer that we first glued together. Then we cut the pieces for the cones, and before the glue dried, we bent them into their final form. Then we treated them with wood stain and finished with furniture lacquer.

As we are committed to using only solid wood in our woodwork, we obviously wouldn’t use veneer in any furniture projects. However, it is a great material for making such delicate shapes like these – and it was truly fun for a change!

Hanna was very pleased with the appearance and the color of the lampshades, so it was worth spending almost all night at the workshop – but we made it before the opening night of the restaurant! Each lampshade is a little bit different – and so it should be, as we are talking about unique handicrafts 🙂