Our ethos
We make things slowly, so they can last.
Empty Nest began with a simple belief: that the objects we use every day should be made with care, from materials with meaning, and be good enough to hand on.
- I
Timber with a past
We work with native New Zealand timbers that have already lived one life: rimu from demolished villas, kauri from old floorboards and fallen trees, matai and tawa from salvage yards. Where we use imported hardwoods, they come from certified, sustainably managed forests. Nothing is felled for us.
- II
One pair of hands
Every Empty Nest piece is designed, cut, glued, flattened and finished by Mel herself. There is no production line and no outsourcing. That is why we make so few, and why each one carries her mark underneath.
- III
Slow on purpose
An end-grain board takes weeks: timber rests between cuts, glue cures overnight, oil soaks in over days. We could hurry it. We choose not to, because the time is what makes it last.
- IV
Honest materials
Food-safe glue, food-grade oil and New Zealand beeswax. No plastic coatings, no lacquers, nothing that will peel, chip or end up in your food.
- V
Made to be kept
We design for the next generation, not the next season. Every board can be re-flattened and refinished, and we will do it for you, for as long as we are making.
- VI
Nothing wasted
Offcuts become coasters, coasters’ offcuts become kindling, and the shavings go to a local garden. The smallest scraps of beautiful timber find their way into mosaics.
The maker
Mel
Mel came to woodwork through a love of cooking and a frustration with boards that warped, split and dulled her knives within a year.
Her first end-grain board took a month and nearly every clamp she could borrow. It still sits on her bench today. Since then she has refined every stage of the process, from how the timber is chosen to how long each layer of oil is left to rest.
She works alone, in a small studio, and answers every enquiry herself.
Write to Mel“The best compliment a board can receive is to be worn smooth by fifty years of family dinners.”
Mel, Empty Nest