Shale Wardrobe — Walnut
A traditional Japanese house has no wardrobes. Clothing and bedding live in the oshiire, a deep recess built into the wall and closed off with paper-covered sliding panels, so that storage disappears entirely and the room is left empty. Emptiness is the luxury.
Western bedrooms are not built that way. If your storage has to stand in the room, it had better be worth looking at.
The Shale Wardrobe is the answer to that problem — a single tall volume of walnut, seventy inches high, with the grain running unbroken across two full-height doors. There is no moulding, no frame, no visible hardware. Just wood, and one deliberate exception: the pulls are cut from full-grain leather. Like the single stem placed in a tokonoma alcove, the whole composition works because there is exactly one point of contrast and nothing competing with it. Leather also does something a metal handle cannot — it warms to the touch and darkens slowly where your hand lands, so the piece keeps a record of being used.
Behind the doors it is a working closet. A garment-hanging bar takes shirts and jackets, and three adjustable shelves sit beneath or beside them, arranged however your wardrobe actually works rather than how a factory guessed it would. Four drawers across the base handle what should never be on a hanger. Doors and drawers are self-closing — they draw themselves shut over the last inch, silently, which in a bedroom at six in the morning is not a small thing.
The walnut is a veneer over a constructed solid wood core. That combination is deliberate at this height: solid panels three and a half feet wide would cup and twist across seasons, while this stays flat, and the face you touch is real walnut with real figure.
One practical note. The back panel is left unfinished, so this piece is designed to stand against a wall rather than float in the middle of a room. Plan its place before it arrives.
It ships fully assembled by freight — nothing to build, but clear the route in and measure your doorways first. Seventy inches tall, forty-four wide, twenty-two deep.
Specifications
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Overall: 44"W × 22"D × 70"H (112 × 56 × 178 cm)
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Walnut veneer over constructed solid wood
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Full-grain leather door and drawer pulls
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Two full-height doors, four drawers
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Three adjustable interior shelves
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Garment-hanging bar
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Self-closing hardware on doors and drawers
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Wood side, bottom and back panels; back is unfinished
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Ships fully assembled, freight delivery
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5-year warranty
Care
Clean with a slightly damp, soft cloth. For dirt and fingerprints, use a quality cleaner made for wood furniture, then wipe completely dry with a soft cloth, following the direction of the grain. Leave the leather pulls alone — no conditioner, no polish. They are meant to darken.
