Page 39 - Designing Ways 238

Instead of architects and designers purely
focusing on resale of countertops, they are
focusing on today’s hottest countertops
showing more textures, colours and
patterns, as well as some creative mixing
and matching of material to create more
personalised designs.

What makes wood beautiful?
Each species has different characteristics
and appeal. A pair of boards taken from
two logs of the same species may not
look exactly alike. That’s because texture,
colour, gloss, grain and figure all come
into play for a species’ visual appeal.
When wood is said to be “coarse”
or “fine” grained, it is a reference to its
texture. A wood’s texture depends on the
relative size and variation of size in its
cells and the width and abundance of its
rays.

What does texture add to woodwork?
Texture produces the surface features
of reflection, refraction or absorption of
light, and the colours within the visible
spectrum which are the properties of the
species of wood that are being worked
with.
It is those colours and the way we see
light interacting with the surface of the
woodwork that makes or breaks the
finished skin of our work. dw

dw • Issue 238 39