In 2013, web-designer and software engineer Mat Brown ditched the mouse and keyboard to pursue his passion for art and design. Brown now focuses on making jewellery and other objects which are available through his Etsy store.

The artist recently shared a DIY house project on his blog and reddit. Brown explains:

“We were running a bit short on shelving in the kitchen and wanted somewhere we could store all the preserves we’re going to make from the garden this year, so we went to the timber yard to see what they had. They had this, 155cm long piece of chestnut.
 
It was pretty heavily cracked and pitted, with knotholes and so on. But, I had a plan. Resin inlay. A technique traditionally used with a colour-matched epoxy to the wood, to give an ‘invisible’ repair. I’m taking a slightly different approach.”

 

Below you will find a brief overview of the project along with the amazing results. The comments accompanying each image are from Brown himself when he posted an album of his project to Imgur. There’s a slightly more detailed version of the project on Brown’s blog as well. To see more art by Mat, be sure to check him out at the links below:

 

 

 

Big old cracked, knotholed, spalted piece of chestnut we got cheap from the timber yard.

 

Sealing the holes with aluminium tape.

 

Set it somewhere good and level otherwise the resin will be a mess.

 

Ready to mix.

 

Bag of pigment. Traditionally resin inlay is colour-matched to the wood, but I’m going down a different path.

 

Resin mixed up and standing a little to let the bubbles bubble out.

 

Poured into the big crack.

 

Doing a bit of a clever with this edge. It’s going to take a while to set, I think I left it nearly a week in the end.

 

Now only the long, long job of planing, carding and sanding this lot flat.

 

Getting there.

 

My favourite part, the first coat of oil. I love that moment where you wipe the oil over and the grain just leaps out at you. They got about eight thin coats of boiled linseed oil.

 

Chopped up and ready for the wall.

 

Brackets installed.

 

Spare bits of walnut for the other brackets.

 

And here they are. In daylight.

 

As it’s getting darker, the glow resin really starts to come into its own.

 

I think this is my favourite one. It’s on the bottom of the top shelf, so it’s visible in normal use.