Design Notes: Basin Swivel Barstool

To paint a picture–  it’s fall 2023, and each week our dumpsters are full to the brim with scrap wood and sawdust. Beautiful pieces of wood—along with less idyllic rags, trash, and lunch leftovers— were carted off to their final resting place: the landfill.

The Basin Swivel Barstool was born out of a simple design question– Can we reuse our wood waste?

When Alex started designing a new collection, he knew he couldn’t ignore this problem any longer. He gathered our team to brainstorm new designs, and they pointed out a shape that was getting overlooked—curved triangular pieces leftover from cutting hundreds of oval tabletops. For each table cut, there were four corners left behind, amounting to 26–32 pieces headed to the landfill each week.

Nico, our CNC operator, proposed a unique boomerang shape that could be cut from those triangles and stacked to form a pedestal base. And just like that, the Basin Barstool was born—solid wood bar stool with a pedestal base that showcases these quilted together wood textures.

Nico says what makes this design compelling is the effort it takes to turn discarded material into something beautiful.

“You think you can just use the waste you have and put it directly into a new product, but this process is actually more labor intensive than using new wood. I think that’s where a lot of the intention comes in.”

In fact, creating the Basin Barstools has made him rethink wood waste entirely. As the stacks of those triangular pieces grow higher around the shop, he’s started daydreaming about new ways to use them.

“Eventually, we’ll figure out how to do even more with our scrap wood. Finding solutions for pieces that would otherwise have no use—it changes the way you think about what was going to get thrown away.”

The Basin Barstool is a promise of innovation—to keep discovering how to use materials in unexpected ways. And nothing is more unexpected than turning scrap wood into luxury solid wood barstools with backs. Plus they swivel!