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Time-honoured

Craftsmanship

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The Oulton family has a long heritage in the antiques business, with decades of experience in truly authentic handcraftsmanship. Everything in the Timothy Oulton Collection is built by hand in our own workshops using time-honoured techniques - hand carving, traditional joinery, unique hand-finishing processes for our leathers. It takes longer, but it's the only way to achieve the intricate detailing that makes our pieces so special.

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fine detailing

Hand-tufting

Tim Oulton was always obsessed with Chesterfields. When he was working in the antiques industry, he would buy any Chesterfield sofa put in front of him - even the broken ones, using his knowledge of materials and craftsmanship to restore them to new. Today, Timothy Oulton's buttoned-up sofas, beds, chairs and footstools are all tufted by hand using those same traditional methods.

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To create one Westminster Button 3 seater sofa, 131 buttons are tufted by hand, and 1,041 studs are nailed in…by hand. The leather is often hand-finished for a second time once upholstered on the finished piece, to create the perfect vintage look and feel.

We’re not purely a design company per se. It’s more than that, it’s about the craftsmanship, the materials, the story.

Tim Oulton

Hand-finished leathers

Our leathers are inspired by antique pieces collected from round the world. We source the best quality hides and finish them purely by hand, meticulously adding layers of translucent dyes to build up a rich, totally authentic and unique finish.

Some of our leathers are tumbled by hand, others are polished with lamb's wool, to create the softest, most beautiful hand feel.

We're proud to have our own tannery in Brazil, where we've engineered a unique, technically advanced water management system, which uses 85% less water and 40% less chemicals during the tanning process, in a drive to create sustainably processed leathers with zero impact.

Mars Chair Mk3

The making of a classic

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Crafted from Scratch

From a sketch to the finished piece, the Mars MK3 is a testament to true craftsmanship. The metal is cut, curved, welded, and then polished for around 3 hours to achieve the high shine. Hand-distressed leather covers the seat and back.

Salvaged Timber

De-nailing it

Our Genuine English Reclaimed Timber - or GERT as it's affectionately known - is reclaimed from old houses, distilleries, and barns…the wood is over 100 years old. The process is an arduous one, beginning at the demolition site where the wood is collected and transported to our workshop. It's then graded, sorted, and de-nailed. Each nail can only be removed by hand, in order to preserve as much as possible the natural patina that the timber has developed over time. To get enough usable wood for a table, up to 600 nails must be removed.

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Metalwork

We love to show the touch of the craftsman’s hand on our metal finishes, from visible welding marks to rugged hand-distressing, to the intensive hand-polishing of our shiny steel. Spitfire is one of our proprietary metal finishes, and the most labour-intensive to create.

Inspired by the famous fighter plane's multi-riveted construction and interlocking aluminium panels, Spitfire was created after our founder Tim Oulton acquired an actual plane wing at an antiques market. The finishing requires a five-stage process to create the impression of worn, distressed metal.

Frozen in time

The delicate art of acrylic

Our driftwood and acrylic collection repurposes salvaged driftwood collected by hand from riverbeds and shores. The wood is dried, arranged in a mould, and liquid acrylic is poured. Then comes the process of cutting, sanding, and polishing. The interaction between the acrylic and the wood - a living material - is highly sensitive. The finished piece has to be stabilized for a number of weeks to ensure perfect symbioses.

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Glass Techniques

From hand-blown glass, created using methods that are thousands of years old, to precision cut optical glass, extruded glass, and cast glass with unique textures reminiscent of tree bark and frozen water. Discover our vintage-inspired lighting collection, made by hand.

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Much of our lighting collection, including our signature Rex range, is made using K9 optical glass. K9 behaves like crystal but is lighter in weight, enabling us to create large, showstopping installations. It also has excellent dispersion qualities, diffusing the light for a softer, mellower glow.

Another showstopper, the Tiffany pendant, takes a whole week to create. Each of the 179 glass drops is hand blown and hand polished by the masters in our glass workshop.

Every single piece in the Timothy Oulton Collection is a labour of love, crafted by hand using simple tools, time-honoured techniques, and generous amounts of the most beautiful and authentic materials.

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Find out more

Read about our roots and inspiration, projects by Timothy Oulton Studio, and our hospitality properties.