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Windrush is a limed oak dresser base: four doors above a row of four drawers. The limed finish is the defining characteristic, and it is why clients choose the range.
Liming works white pigment into the open grain of the oak and then cleans it back off the surface. The result is that the grain pattern reads as pale lines against a lighter background, and the piece stays light in a room that would otherwise swallow it. In a dark kitchen or a north-facing dining room, a limed oak base does something a polished one cannot.
The long, low format matters too. Four doors in a row give you a genuinely useful width of cupboard, and the drawers above them keep everyday things at hand rather than at the back of a shelf.
Every base is made to order in our Suffolk workshop, to your dimensions. Nothing is held in stock.
What the range covers
| Piece | Notes |
|---|---|
| Windrush dresser base | Four doors above a row of four drawers, in limed oak |
Related type pages: dresser bases, dressers, Welsh dressers and sideboards and servers.
Windrush is known for the base. A rack above it, a taller cupboard alongside it, or any other limed oak piece for the same room can be drawn to match.
Timbers and finish
Windrush was drawn for limed oak, and liming only works properly on an open-grained timber. Oak is the right answer here, and it is what we recommend.
Like every catalogue piece, Windrush is priced in the four standard timbers: oak, cherry, mahogany and walnut. Specified in cherry, mahogany or walnut it becomes a different proposition, because the limed finish is not part of it. If that is what you want, we will make it and it will be good, but talk to us first about what you are giving up.
Character oak, pippy oak for tops, oak selected for medullary ray and clean timber with no knots at all are available on application. More on our timbers and on our finishes.
Liming is the sort of finish you have to see rather than read about. Order free timber and finish samples and put one against your own wall.
Make it yours
- Length, height and depth to the millimetre, which is the point of the range in a run of units or an alcove.
- Door and drawer count. Four and four is standard. Three doors, six drawers or a mixed arrangement are all straightforward.
- Interior. Shelf positions, a wine rack, a cutlery drawer, storage sized around particular objects.
- The degree of liming. How much pigment stays in the grain changes the piece considerably, from a faint dusting to a strongly white grain.
- Ironmongery. Solid brass knobs, swan neck handles or turned wooden knobs.
If you want the Windrush proportions in a taller cupboard, or a matching limed piece elsewhere in the room, we will draw it. Read how commissioning works.
Questions about Windrush
What is limed oak?
Limed oak is oak with a white pigment worked into its open grain and cleaned back from the surface. The grain lines stay pale, the surface stays close to the natural colour, and the whole piece reads lighter. It is a finish, not a timber.
Does a limed finish wear off?
The pigment sits in the grain and is sealed over, so it does not rub away in normal use. As with any finish, it will mark if it is treated badly. Our care guidance covers everyday cleaning.
Can I have a Windrush base in a colour instead?
Yes. The same carcass can be painted, rub-through painted, sand-blasted, polished or colour matched to a sample you send us. It stops being limed oak, but the piece itself is unchanged.
