The most beautiful furniture, in my opinion, doesn’t try to embellish the wood to somehow make it more than what it is. It capitalizes on grain, texture and natural color. Perhaps that’s why some of the timeless designs are also the most visually simple. Tage Frid has this to say about simplifying design in his book, Tage Frid Teaches Woodworking : “The only trouble with designing and working in wood is that it has the advantage—or disadvantage, however you look at it—of being beautiful in itself. It is not like metal. A piece of metal by itself is very cold and has to be hammered, shaped and polished before people even look at it. A piece of clay, which is really dirt, must be shaped, fired and glazed. But take a piece of wood—plane, sand and oil it, and you will find it is a beautiful thing. The more you do to it from then on, the more chance that you will make it worse.…