Wonderwall Studios

To create joyous panelling from salvaged woods that enriches surfaces and enhances your interior. We strive for the highest quality to produce panelling that will last a lifetime.

We scour the land for woods that can be salvaged and upcycled, giving discarded timber a second lease on life. Typically, we’ll turn a weathered girder into a striking collection of unique wall tiles. It’s a reincarnation of sorts.

We love wood and working with craftspeople. We love salvaging woods, breathing new life into something old, worn and weathered. We love exploration and travel. We love design and having fun with like-minded souls. That’s why we do what we do the way we do it.

Wonderwall Studios wasn’t founded, it happened. During our travels throughout South-East Asia we had come across many abandoned houses. ‘What a waste of wonderful resources!’ We thought. ‘We should do something!!’ We said. So we did. We bumped into a great team of woodworkers on Java and started working with them on building a collection. That was back in 2010.

A lot has changed since those early days. Our collection has expanded and is topflight. The team of woodworkers on Java has pretty much become our family and their workshop our home away from home. But besides that, we’ve grown up. Our network is diverse and global and everyone we work with a professional.

As we grew, so did HQ. We moved from a desk in the attic to a seriously big warehouse and office space. Here our team of dedicated superheroes works on new designs, creates collections, and plots our next move. This is our nerve centre, war room and storage facility. From here we keep in close contact with our workshops and partners in other parts of the world. And there are quite a few people to keep in touch with …

The Wonderwall Studios family is large, diverse and growing. It spans several continents, and traverses many cultures. From the high-spirited folks in the south of Europe to the cool characters in the Nordic countries, from the hectic and fast-paced Far East through Eastern and Central Europe to our larger-than-life cousins in North America. What binds us is a love of craftsmanship, woodwork and fun. Come to think of it, that’s pretty much our Holy Trinity.

The locations of our workshops are determined by where we find and salvage wood. Take our railway sleepers, for instance: we found a huge stockpile in Rajasthan, India. Now, instead of shipping the load to another place, we set up shop on the spot and seek a workshop willing to do business. This not only makes sense on a business level (efficiency!), but also helps the community (jobs and happy people!). Everyone’s a winner.

The local craftspeople we work with are professional woodworkers and carpenters. In many cases we work with family-owned businesses that have been around for generations. And because they are often older than Wonderwall Studios we listen to their advice and look closely at how they work. We adapt to their process, meaning that the way we work in Indonesia differs substantially from the process in Italy. Or India. Or Poland. You get the idea.

After all these years and changes, one thing remains the same: We still salvage wood. Continue to seek out abandoned houses, derelict sheds, discarded railroad-sleepers, overstock, wine barrels, old floors ... Anything goes really, as long as it’s salvaged. We’ll never compromise on this, because we want to stay true to our motto, which is not just giving salvaged woods a second life, but a better one. A much better one, because we want our products to last a lifetime.

Bog Oak
Bog Oak is the household name for oak wood that has been buried in peat bog for hundreds and in some cases thousands of years. Peat – or turf – is a build-up of decaying organic matter. The trees, trunks and logs we reclaim are from large oak trees that were felled many moons ago by man or nature. During the centuries the wood sank ever deeper into the black mud, enriched and coloured by acids and minerals. The rich, dark shades of brown and intense blacks give Bog Oak its exclusive look.

Derelict houses
If we come across an old house that has obviously been abandoned, we contact the owner. A price for the scrap wood is arranged and the house – or what’s left of is sold to us. After this it’s up to us to dismantle the derelict building and give it a second life on the walls of someone else’s house, restaurant, bar or hotel.

Woods we source from abandoned and derelict houses come in various degrees of erosion. The amount of erosion – from light to heavy – influences the colour and hue of a piece of timber. We source this type of wood on Java. You can imagine how the tropical climate weathers the timber.

Olive trees
As an important economic resource in their countries of origin (olive oil!), it is forbidden to cut down olive trees. Only when the olive tree has stopped yielding fruit and when the department of Agriculture has granted permission, can a tree be felled. This means most trees are well over 150 years old before being turned into a high-end piece of furniture.

Up until then however, all trees are pruned. Pruning stimulates growth and increases fruit yield. Due the fact that olive farmers prune their trees in their own specific manner, height, girth and grain vary depending on the source.

Wood from the olive tree is a hard wood and has a splendid grain. The core of the trunk is a creamy-brown colour, with dark or black streaks. The colour deepens with age.

Mixed salvage
Anything left behind or found on the factory or forest floor. That’s one description for this category type. The combined sum of all our scavengery would be another. Think disused telegraph poles, girders, railroad sleepers, root wood, off-cuts, overstock and production surplus. The woods that end up in this mixed bag are from all over the globe.

Railroad sleepers
There’s a lot of railroad in India. Ever wondered what happens to the sleepers once replaced? We asked that question too, and the answer led us to salvaging – and saving - the redundant sleepers. Decades of thundering diesel trains hammered these pieces of timber giving them an intense and rich colour. Loads of character and very, very robust.