'Silverlining'

We were introduced to Steven from Silverlining who told us how he came to work at Silverlining, which is a premium furniture creating company based in Wrexham.

He studied at art school for 5 years, became particularly interested in product design, and worked for a different furniture company prior to Silverlining.

They wrote a book called "Adventures in furniture making", containing the company's story and history.

The company was established in 1985 by Mark Boddington, who was inspired by barrel makers to create something different. In 1996 he built a yacht and expanded gradually from there, even creating chairs for the Duke and Duchess of Westminster.

They ever expanding and are creating a new building in the next 3 years near an airport.

They take a lot of time and care into their process. Initially they will create lots of hand sketches, and can move onto laser printing/cutting before structural modelling. Some of the materials they work with are quite hard to come by. One of which includes the 'buried bog oak', which is semi-fossilised timber preserved in peat bogs. Timber then needs a year to dry for an inch of thickness, so one would have to be patient, but the wood itself would be worth it in quality. Another example of the premium, rare quality of their products is the salvaged reindeer leather they used, discovered 30 metres below the English channel in 1973. They were found aboard the shipwrecked Metton Catherina, and it took 33 years to salvage the hide. Despite being submerged for 230 years, it was still in excellent condition.

When it comes to technique, Silverlining again remains premium. They commissioned Nottarianni Glass to use the technique 'cane' glass blowing to create sculptural glass orbs for a Monaco 2017 innovation sample. Another technique that I found interesting was Straw honeycomb composites - Bio-resin infused into hollow natural fibres, then when set, the resin block is sliced into strong yet light 'micro-honeycomb' pieces. They take inspirations from eras such as Art Nouveau, as they created such pieces as their Fibonacci cabinet, laced with white mother of pearl, and sycamore. A large desk made of English walnut was also built, taking shy of 4000 hours to build.

A quote that Steven mentioned was one used by themselves was "Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning" - Winston Churchill

Silverlining is a secretive, exciting, premium company, that ensures their resources and materials reflect their high quality and local roots. This is shown through the fact that every piece of furniture has a cover made by a company in Wrexham.

Their motto is to "test everything" as nothing is "just made". As the Duchess of Westminster said, "Silverlining creates furniture with a soul".

Notes - Mark Reeves is their photographer

Wallace Cunningham is their architect.