“Unlike Anything I've Seen Before": How Partnerships Create Original and Innovative Design. (Custom Sideboard)

Black walnut sideboard made by Sound Designs. Video by BrakeThru Media.

"Unlike anything I've seen before."

When a Bronxville customer wrote those words about our work, it stopped me in my tracks. In a world of mass-produced furniture and Pinterest-perfect copies, originality has become the ultimate luxury. For a furniture maker, there's no higher compliment.

But creating something truly unique requires more than skilled hands and sharp tools. It requires the right partnership.

The Art of the Patron

Innovative design often emerges as a byproduct of great collaborations. We've been fortunate to work with clients who see themselves not just as customers, but as patrons—partners in pushing creative boundaries. They understand that commissioning custom furniture is like commissioning art: it requires trust, patience, and a shared vision.

One such patron lives right here in Glen Cove. She jokingly calls her living room our "mini showroom" because it houses multiple commissioned pieces: a large black walnut dining table, a custom wall-mounted shelf, and most recently, a sideboard that challenged everything we thought we knew about simplicity.

The Soul of the Wood

This sideboard began with a story. The wood for the frame came from a sprawling 50-acre estate on Long Island's Gold Coast in Locust Valley. We met the owner through an unexpected connection—a local beekeeper we trade with (charcuterie boards for pounds of local beeswax, which we use in our board butter). She believed in our mission of giving new life to fallen trees and made the introduction.

The estate owner was selling her property and had some black walnut boards she wanted to find a good home for. Years earlier, a storm had torn through the property, toppling several historic black walnut trees. A local sawyer had milled them into boards that had been air-drying ever since. When we saw them—thick planks with rich, dark color shot through with hints of red and purple—we knew we'd found something special. These boards would become the frame, the bones of our sideboard. But the face of the piece demanded something even more exceptional.

The Perfect Match

With such a minimal design, the wood itself becomes the star. We spent the better part of a morning searching our entire inventory, hauling heavy walnut slabs into the light, looking for the perfect bookmatched pair. When you take two sequential slabs from a log, and flip them like pages in a book, the two halves mirror each other. Find the right pair, and the grain dances across both doors. The sapwood—that lighter new growth—would create a delicate line down the center when the doors closed.

After hours of searching, we found them. Two slabs that seemed to breathe together, their grain flowing like water across the surface.

The Hunt for Hardware

Our patron had one specific request: black hardware that would complement the blackened steel legs of her dining table. It needed to be modern yet organic, fluid rather than angular, something that honored the natural curves of the walnut.

I spent days scrolling through conventional options. Everything felt wrong—too industrial, too precious, or too ordinary for slabs this extraordinary. Finally, in frustration, I typed "organic modern hardware" into Google and discovered Plank Hardware's "Pebble" knobs. Nature-inspired, they looked like smooth river stones cast in black metal.

When I presented them alongside a safer choice, our patron didn't hesitate. "Pebble," she said. "Definitely Pebble."

That's when I knew we weren't just building furniture. We were creating heirlooms.

"Pebble" hardware by Plank Hardware. Notice the prominent stripe in the middle of the cabinet.

The Finished Piece

The completed sideboard stands as a testament to what happens when the right materials meet the right vision. The locally sourced frame supports doors that seem to float, their bookmatched grain creating a landscape across the surface. The Pebble hardware invites touch, each knob a small sculpture. Finished with Odie's Oil, the walnut glows with an inner light, every ray of sunshine revealing new depths in the grain.

Even our pickiest critic, a cabinetmaker from a neighboring shop, stood back and nodded his approval when he saw the piece on the shop floor.

We named this design "Salutations Sideboard" after a famous Gold Coast era estate not far from the shop.

Sideboard Closeup. All photos and videos in this article by Brakethru Media.

Your Turn

This is what happens when patrons and craftsmen trust each other enough to create something new. When you're ready to commission a piece "unlike anything you've seen before," we're here.

Because your home deserves more than furniture. It deserves functional art with a story.

-Joe Ferrara

Founder

Sound Designs

joe@sounddesignsny.com

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