ooh, love them! and there's something elegant in the fact that you have to be more careful and refined when using them.

i feel the opposite. wood is supposed to be treated with respect, i feel that what you do in a bathroom/washroom doesnt have to be refined or fancy. its where you ... well, you know. while yes i want my wash room to be clean and pretty, i think this is just a waste of a tree.

beautiful but probably a waste of good wood

How is this a "waste"? Isn't a sink a functional working element in a room? And um, aren't trees generally renewable? And, when you DO throw them out, isn't wood biodegradable?

It's a waste because water and wood are never meant to mix. After about 5 or 6 years of use the water will start to get into the wood and it will either start to blacken or split the seams of the wooden sink. And although wood is considered renewable the wood that most furniture manufacturers use comes from old growth timber (meaning the wood is grown on a farm but cut from trees hundreds of years old).

Love these! Fuck the haters!

Rub that sucker with mineral oil and the water will be sealed out.

Wood and water never mean to mix? Hmm. There is a long tradition of wooden wash fixtures in Japan.

And do you know for a fact these are old-growth trees?

oneformybaby--

You make it sound like you are pissing in your sink!

I could see one of these working beautifully in a powder room.

these are so beautiful. but i would feel horrible about spitting toothpaste into those things.

Funny, using wood as a basin is far more useful than paneling.

These are Great!

Some woods are fine with water, Cyprus and Cedar both look great raw and weathered (way better looking without paints or sealers).

They also look as if they are constructed of small strips of wood, not a chuck from a big tree. These could easily be Recycled wood!

What a great use for Old wood.

just to piggyback on patrick (the other one)'s note - here in nyc we still have wooden water towers because they continue to be the best water containers. and the best part is, there is no sealant or inner casing in these wooden towers. they are comprised only of tightly-bound wooden slats! wonderful.

I love em. Especially the biggest one.

P.S. aren't there steam rooms that are lined with wood? Seems functional to me.

Anybody know if they're available here? I'd love to get my mitts on one.

I know this is a very old post but for my 2 cents--I'm a conservation biologist with some knowledge of forestry trends and pretty much you have to assume that wood is NOT sustainably forested unless you confirm otherwise. Keep in mind that even if it's not "old growth", or an endangered species, the fastest-growing trees still take at least 20 years to grow to harvest, and plantations displace natural forest and ecosystems. Bamboo--a grass--is closer to a truly renewable resource because it grows incredibly fast. Tree heights are achieved in 6 months in some cases.

HOWEVER lots of designers *are* switching to sustainable wood so there's a decent chance these might be.