Drift teak furniture

Why teak furniture at KOK?

Teak and rattan go so well together. They both originate from the same geographical areas, South East Asia in general and Indonesia in particular. You can even find rattan vines growing on teak trees in the forest. This should tell you that they are happy together. In furniture too, they complement each other wonderfully. Rattan seats adopt the beautiful curves that this extremely flexible material allows. Teak furniture is more comfortable with a contemporary, straight and solid design.

Recycled teak furniture means zero deforestation

Sought after for its hardness and beautiful grain, teak is notoriously over-exploited. Despite the efforts of the countries concerned, which have significantly increased their areas of new FSC-certified plantations, the demand is such that a great deal of illegally cut teak is finding its way onto the market. Teak that is smuggled from protected areas or cut too young, before it has reached maturity. In short, a dreadful mess that does not help the problem of deforestation in tropical and equatorial zones. Instead, KOK has chosen to use recycled teak for all its furniture, from the table to the teak headboard. It is all made by recovering timber from traditional Indonesian wooden houses. Built sometimes more than 150 years ago, today, many of them are being demolished to make way for buildings that are considered “modern”: bricks, concrete and air-conditioning... All these old frameworks, floors, doors and window frames are, of course, a little damaged by the ravages of time, but teak is such a hard wood that a few millimetres below the surface, it has retained all its original splendour. Stripped, sewn into standard profiles, it is now recycled for furniture making. Our recycled teak furniture bracket (certified by the specific label “FSC recycled”) does not contribute in any way to the cutting of fresh would and therefore lead to deforestation.

Our recycled teak furniture has all the charm and authenticity of the old-fashioned style

This teak, sometimes a hundred years old, bears witness to a time when only the finest specimens were cut, without over-exploiting the forest. It is not only very dry, but it also has beautiful veining that is only possible with large diameters. Freshly planted teak, even FSC-certified, is cut a little early, at the limit of its maturity, 40 cm in diameter at best. Once the lighter sapwood has been removed all around, it is not easy to extract beautiful logs from it, which is why it is often cut into small strips glued together. Our recycled teak furniture, on the other hand, does not lack beautiful sections. But the other side of the coin is that, here and there, you can find, especially in our teak sideboards, vestiges of their former life: lock holes, nail marks, etc., that our craftsmen have filled in but not hidden completely. This is also part of the charm of a piece of furniture made from recycled teak.

Why does KOK brush its teak furniture?

Brushing teak furniture highlights the beautiful grain of the wood, especially if it is recycled teak. The brush will dig slightly into the grain, restoring the authentic, natural look it had when it was still a beam, a floor or a door frame. Of course, all our teak furniture is unfinished, without any finish or varnish, and can vary in shade from one piece to another, even from one plank to another, within the same product.