"I’m looking at a piece of startling beauty: a rich, dark mahogany-topped sideboard, with light oak front panels decorated in the most delightful filigree pattern of hummingbirds and foliage. It is at once solid and classical yet also has a modern, witty freshness. As a simple decorative object for the home, it is enormously desirable. When its marvellous story unravels, I want it even more.
The hardwood frame is from old school laboratory desktops and the oak panels once formed the drawer bottoms of Victorian specimen chests at the Natural History Museum. They were removed as part of the reorganisation of the museum’s 20 million-specimen plant and insect collection.
Thanks to designer Dan Heath and architectural foragers Maria Speake and Adam Hills, these and other unwanted treasures are being transformed into beautiful, contemporary furniture.
“They were from part of the Natural History Museum’s storage cabinets,” Maria says, “magnificent pieces, each one a work of art."