Five Tier Woven Etagere 700mm in Natural Rattan

The taller version, at 1800mm, which is as high as a woven shelf should go before it wants a wall fixing.

Every piece here is woven by hand, which is not a marketing line but a description of the only way it can be done. Rattan cannot be machine woven around a curve, so a chair back is somebody sitting with a former and a bundle of soaked cane for most of a day. The consequence is that no two pieces are identical, that the binding at the joints varies slightly, and that a weave that is perfectly regular is usually a sign of extruded plastic rather than good workmanship.

Specification

• Dimensions: see the product name for the width, 350mm deep, up to 1800mm high
• Seat or working height: shelf spacing 380mm, which suits books and baskets equally
• Frame: steam bent rattan or bamboo pole, bound at every joint
• Weave: close woven shelves on a rattan frame
• 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: 15kg per shelf evenly distributed
• 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: Flat packed to keep the delivery sensible, about an hour with the spanner in the box. Frame joints are bolted through steel inserts, and the woven panels arrive already woven onto their frames rather than as something you have to assemble.
• Weight: approximately 17.8 kilograms
• Shelves: fixed, not adjustable, because a woven shelf is woven onto its frame
• Anti tip strap supplied on anything over 1500mm
• Freestanding, level feet fitted
• Light enough for one person to move loaded, just about

What you get

• The frame and shelves, flat packed
• An anti tip strap
• Felt pads, a spanner and a care card

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

The boho end of the range, which mostly means texture. A woven piece next to a plain one reads as considered and three woven pieces in a row read as a garden centre, so the rule we give people is one large woven piece per wall and as many small ones as you like. Works particularly well against a dark wall, where the light catches the weave and the piece stops disappearing.