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Daybed good at night

As a window display, it’s not quite as outlandish as the famed ones of Barneys, Macy’s or Harvey Nichols. But as the star attraction behind a Gastown store’s pane, this daybed — complete with its extraordinary fumed-white oak veneer — certainly makes you look twice.

“In 15 years of making furniture, it’s the first time I’ve used this wood. It’s beautiful,” says millworker Chris James, who fabricated the p+a centro daybed, which was designed and engineered by Robin McIntosh and Shelley Penner of Penner and Associates Interior Design, with industrial designer Saleem Khattak. The process, which was performed in Germany, involves darkening the FSC-certified wood by exposing it to a high grade of ammonia in a sealed chamber. (The tannins in the wood react with the ammonia and change colour to shades of browns, greys and blacks. The longer the cycle, the darker the woods.)

“It’s unusual, although it is a traditional technique with a modern application,” adds James. A lover of problem-solving, James went to the drawing- board with the designers in order to create a cantilevered section on the daybed that opens underneath, complete with two drawers and open storage.