Cane Fronted Bedside Cabinet with a Door in Natural Rattan

A door rather than drawers, which holds more and costs less, and is what most people want once they stop to think about it.

Three words get used interchangeably and only one of them is a material. Rattan is a climbing palm that grows through the forest canopy in Indonesia and the Philippines and reaches maturity in five to seven years. Cane is the outer skin of that same palm, stripped off and used flat for weaving and binding. Wicker is not a material at all, it is a weave, and you can wicker rattan, willow, seagrass or paper cord. Almost every shop selling this furniture uses the three words as though they were the same thing, which is why so much of what is sold as rattan turns out to be dyed paper cord over a steel frame. Everything here says which it is, on every listing, and if it is not rattan we do not call it rattan.

Specification

• Dimensions: see the product name for the width, 400mm deep, 600mm high
• Seat or working height: top at 600mm
• Frame: solid timber carcass with a braced back
• Weave: hand woven cane webbing in the fronts, set in a rebate with reed spline
• Finish: natural rattan pole and peel, steam bent over a former and bound at every joint, finished in a clear matt lacquer that lets the cane keep its own colour
• Load rating: 20kg per shelf, 10kg per drawer
• Indoor or outdoor: Indoors, or a covered veranda or conservatory that stays dry. Natural rattan is not garden furniture and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you a chair that will go grey, swell, split and unravel inside two seasons. If you want rattan outdoors you want woven polyethylene, which is a good product honestly described and something we do not sell.
• Assembly: Arrives with the legs off, which is four bolts and about ten minutes. The spanner is in the box and the bolts are threaded into steel inserts rather than into the timber, so they can come off again for a move.
• Weight: approximately 12.4 kilograms
• One adjustable shelf behind the door
• Cane webbing: replaceable, and we sell the webbing and the spline
• Freestanding, with an anti tip strap supplied
• Handles: aged brass or matt black, fitted
• Felt pads and levelling glides fitted

What you get

• One cane fronted bedside cabinet with a door
• Handles fitted
• Legs, glides and an anti tip strap
• Felt pads and a spare set
• A care card and a piece of matching cane webbing

Care

Dust it with a soft brush rather than a cloth, because a cloth skates over the weave and a brush gets into it. Two or three times a year wipe it over with a barely damp cloth and let it dry away from a radiator. Rattan does not like being dry any more than it likes being wet, so a piece that lives next to a radiator or in a room with the heating on all winter will benefit from a light mist of water once a month, which sounds like an old wives' tale and is the single most useful thing anyone will tell you about it. If a strand lifts, do not pull it. Damp it, press it back and hold it with masking tape overnight.

Where it works

This is the piece people mean by coastal: pale, woven and light enough to move with one hand. It sits happily against white or off white walls and against the greens and warm neutrals that have replaced grey in most houses. In a room with a lot of hard surfaces it does the job that a rug does, which is to take the edge off the echo.