Hamilton Holmes Furniture and Millwork

The smallest pieces often solve the most familiar problems.

Our Doughnut Milking Stool in solid Douglas fir is one of them.

A perch for putting on shoes in the mudroom. An extra seat when the room fills. A bedside companion, or a little character beside a favourite reading chair.

At 15″ high and 10″ in diameter, the Doughnut answers each need without looking merely practical. Its deeply sculpted seat, tapered legs and turned ball feet transform the familiar three-legged milking stool into a compact, expressive form.

Pronounced Douglas fir grain follows every curve, giving the piece warmth, movement and unmistakable charm.

Made by hand in Hamilton and photographed with Nicholas Holmes at the city’s historic Westinghouse HQ.

One available now.

Free pickup from our workshop at 94 Vine Street, Hamilton, or $200 flat-rate delivery within 100 km. Delivery beyond this area is available by quotation.

A small piece of local design to collect and live with. Shop the piece tagged in this post.

This Hamilton century home’s new kitchen is ready for its next chapter and the family who will write it.

At Blythe House, our millwork installation is complete. These site photographs, shared by Mark Berman, catch the kitchen between the last stages of construction and the everyday life it was made for.

The century home’s architecture provided the starting point. An existing archway finds an echo in the oak-lined beverage wall. Framed panels, rounded mouldings and fine reeding give the stained oak island the character of a freestanding piece of furniture, set against cabinetry painted in Farrow & Ball’s Railings.

Our work spans the range-wall cabinetry, island, beverage wall and custom upholstered banquette. Beside the exposed brick, the banquette’s rounded back brings softness and a place to settle in. Pocket doors alongside the arched shelves slide away to reveal a working counter, then close to keep the everyday essentials tucked out of sight.

A few finishing touches remain elsewhere in the room. Then comes the part that belongs entirely to the family: the first breakfast, a favourite cup, another chair pulled up for someone who stays.

Custom millwork and banquette: Hamilton Holmes

Construction and site photographs: M Berman Homes
Paint: Farrow & Ball Railings
Hardware: Yester Home

A pantry worth leaving the door open for.

Just off the main kitchen, the Crawford pantry brings everyday essentials into easy reach.
Floating wood shelves hold stacks of ceramics, a brass rail keeps linens close at hand, and generous drawers provide storage below the dark countertop.

Traditional face-frame cabinetry with inset doors and drawers gives the room its structure. Fine moulding around the recessed panels, exposed brass hinges and a muted Farrow & Ball finish reward a closer look.

Our millwork for this Lake Simcoe home extended through the main kitchen and into other rooms. Here, in collaboration with Ashley Montgomery Design, that same attention to detail makes a hardworking pantry a space with its own character.

Millwork Hamilton Holmes
Design Ashley Montgomery
Photography Lauren Miller

BUILT FOR THE ROOM. FINISHED FOR THE LIGHT.

For this private residence in Ottawa’s Rockcliffe Park, we worked with OFDG on a three-piece custom commission, developing each piece from their inspirations and specifically for the home.

Shown here is the 44” square coffee table, built in red oak and designed to solve for both scale and light.

The room called for a piece with enough presence to anchor it, but without feeling overly heavy. The generous square format provides that weight, while the open lower shelf and restrained base keep the form visually open.

The surface became the second part of the solution. The red oak was bandsawn wherever possible, then wire-brushed to open the grain further, oxidized, and finished with black oil. Rather than creating a flat dark surface, the process leaves ridges, recesses and irregularities that respond continuously to the changing natural light.

From across the room, the table reads as a strong, quiet architectural form. Up close, the saw marks, grain and evidence of making become much more visible.

Rockcliffe Park, a Heritage Conservation District known for its historic residences and distinctive architectural character, provided a fitting setting for a piece developed so specifically around material, proportion and light.

It’s the kind of work we especially enjoy with OFDG: taking the requirements of a particular room and resolving them through material, finish, construction and proportion.

Designed + manufactured in Hamilton by Hamilton Holmes

Interior design: OFDG O'KEEFE FIORENZA Design Group
Rockcliffe Park, Ottawa

THING 1 & 2. Two opposites. One very useful pair.

Sculptural wall hooks in solid white oak and brass, finished by hand in our OXALINO™ spiral.

Designed as counterparts, one appears top-heavy and the other bottom-heavy. Six brass arms emerge from each rounded oak form, tipped with turned white oak balls and arranged slightly off-kilter.

The hand-painted spiral follows the grain and curvature of the wood, exaggerating the shifting geometry of each piece. As your perspective changes, the forms seem to stretch, tilt and move.

Part sculpture, part very useful place to put your coat.
Hang them together, flank a mirror or doorway, or give each one its own wall.

One limited pair is in stock and ready to ship. The pieces shown are the exact pieces available. Shown with our Ring Mirror.

THING 1 & 2 — OXALINO™ Edition
Solid white oak + brass
Sold as a pair

Available for free pickup, GTHA delivery, or shipping
GTHA delivery — $200 flat rate

WallHooks

OXALINO™ is not printed, transferred or reproduced. Every line is painted by hand.

Made from solid white oak, three tapered legs with ball feet support a sculpted solid-wood seat shaped into an exaggerated doughnut. Traditional mortise-and-tenon joinery keeps the construction grounded in furniture-making tradition, while OXALINO™ completely changes its surface.

Each OXALINO™ piece is individually hand-painted by Nicholas Holmes, Founder and Principal

Designer of Hamilton Holmes, at our Vine Street studio in Hamilton, Ontario.

Every line is painted by hand using an oxidizing solution that reacts with the tannins naturally present in the oak. The pattern is not simply applied on top of the wood. It develops through a chemical reaction with the material itself. A final whitened oil draws out the oak grain, creating the characteristic moiré-like interplay between painted line, pattern and natural wood.

This stool features the evolving Hurricane pattern, a geometric OXALINO™ language developed around negative space and movement. Painted without guides, the process is slow, concentrated and deliberately human. Irregularities, shifts in the line and the hand of the painter remain visible in the finished piece.

Part furniture, part functional sculpture, and unmistakably made by hand.

15”H × 10”W
Solid White Oak
Hand-painted OXALINO™ Hurricane pattern

Available now at Love House NYC.

Designed and made by Hamilton Holmes in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
Explore the full story and evolution of OXALINO™ on hamiltonholmes.com

Now published. Swipe through our six-page feature in issue 332 of Furniture & Cabinetmaking.

Titled Longevity and Beauty, the feature looks at Nicholas Holmes’s approach to furniture making, the evolution of Hamilton Holmes, and the ideas that continue to shape the work: traditional joinery, proportion, material, architecture, experimentation, and a belief that furniture should be made to endure.

“For me, longevity and beauty are inseparable. One doesn’t exist without the other.”

The article moves between original furniture, collectible pieces and commissioned work, including the Shoreman’s Bench, Captain’s Table, OXALINO collection and recent custom interiors.

Thank you to Furniture & Cabinetmaking (https://www.instagram.com/fandcmagazine/) for the thoughtful feature.

Photography throughout the feature by Ryan Fung, Natalie Hays, Riley Snelling, Lauren Miller and Patrick Biller, and Alejandro Collados

Furniture & Cabinetmaking
Issue 332
Longevity and Beauty

Nicholas Holmes
Founder + Principal Designer
Hamilton Holmes Furniture & Millwork

Hamilton Holmes