The workshop
Slow is a method, not a mood.
Everything we sell is built in one hall on the Asterweg by seven makers. This is how a log becomes a piece that outlives its first house.
From log to piece — the four stages
Selection
We buy whole logs from three sawmills we have worked with for over a decade, and we open every log ourselves. Roughly a third is sent back.
Drying
Boards are stickered and air-dried in the yard for three years, then brought to workshop humidity for a final month. No kiln shortcuts.
Joinery
Mortise and tenon, dovetail, drawbore — cut by hand and machine, assembled without a single screw in the primary structure.
Finish
Three coats of oil, rubbed back between each. It protects the wood and, unlike lacquer, it can be renewed at your kitchen table.
The timber sets the schedule. Our job is to not embarrass it.
Mees Akkerman — founder & head of workshop
The finish
Oil, not armour.
Lacquer seals wood away behind plastic; oil lets it breathe, darken and repair. A scratch in an Atelier Noord piece is an afternoon's work with a cloth — not a factory return. We supply the oil and the instructions with every delivery.
See the collectionsSee it happen
The workshop is open on Fridays.
Every Friday afternoon we walk visitors through the hall — the drying stacks, the bench room, whatever is on the clamps that week. Book ahead; groups stay small.
Book a workshop tour