Furniture built
from the board up.
Kakudai Furniture is a one-maker shop turning live-edge walnut, spalted maple, and sapele into tables, casework, and lighting, built to order, one slab at a time.
"Kakudai" is Japanese for expansion, the idea that a single board, worked by hand, can grow into something a room is built around.
Every piece starts with a board, not a blueprint. A tree has already done the hard part, and the maker's job is to listen for what a board wants to become rather than force it into a shape decided in advance. Walnut, spalted and curly maple, and sapele are chosen slab by slab for grain, figure, and the live edges that most shops plane away, then joined by hand, so the wood's own history, its knots, its curves, its quiet flaws, stays visible in the finished piece.
That way of looking took years of quiet practice to learn, long before there was a shop, and it still sets the pace at the bench, slow, attentive, unhurried by anything but the wood itself. Sanding, waiting on glue to cure, watching light move across a finished top, these aren't the parts of the process to rush past. They're the point.
The shop is small and the queue is short by design, each commission gets full attention from rough lumber to final coat, built to be used daily and to outlast the room it sits in.
Spalted Maple & Walnut Dining Table
A book-matched walnut top on a single spalted maple slab leg, the tree's own dark spalting lines running straight through the base like ink.
Recent pieces
A sample of what's come out of the shop, each one-off, each available as a starting point for a commission in your own dimensions and wood.
Display Cabinet
Open display case over two through-joined drawers, drawer fronts left unfinished to show the figure.
Cantilever Coffee Table
A single tapered leg carries the full span, more sculpture than structure, built to hold real weight.
Bell Stand
A single live-edge offcut shaped to hold a meditation bell, no two will ever be the same shape twice.
Live Edge Tables
A live-edge walnut slab on a pegged base, sized to sit beside a chair or a low sofa.
Sculptural Wall Piece
Built from a curved live-edge board too striking to cut into anything else, hung rather than shelved.
Slit-Light Floor Lamp
A solid tapered form split by a single glowing seam, the joinery doubling as the light source.
Slatted Room Divider
A freestanding screen of squared slats in a mortised frame, built to size for a specific room.
How a commission comes together
Consultation
A short conversation about the piece, the room it's for, and roughly what it needs to do, dimensions, use, and budget range.
Design & Material
A sketch or model of the piece, then a walk through available slabs so you're picking real wood, not a swatch.
Build & Finish
Milled, joined, and finished by hand in the Chicago shop, with progress photos along the way and delivery when it's cured.
Start a piece of your own
Tables, casework, lighting, and one-off pieces, built to your room's dimensions in wood chosen with you. Send a few details and hear back within a few days.
- Free initial consultation
- Built to order in Chicago
- Most pieces take 6–12 weeks