At So Watt, our curated Collections reflect a deep commitment to premium craftsmanship and sustainable design, offering high-quality furniture solutions that elevate both the functionality and visual appeal of any space. Each piece is designed with care to enhance productivity and comfort, while showcasing timeless aesthetics that complement a modern lifestyle. Our products strike a harmonious balance between durability, refined craftsmanship, and innovative design qualities that position So Watt as a trusted provider of stylish, practical furniture.

Crafted from carefully chosen materials, our collections span a range of product types including IKEA hacks, homewares, seating, shelving, pegboards, and custom joinery. Birch Plywood is our go-to material for many of our projects due to its superior stability and hybrid soft/hardwood characteristics. Its pale blonde tone also allows for excellent paint coverage and colour accuracy, making it ideal for joinery applications like cabinet doors. For furniture, we often use Hoop Pine Plywood - a lightweight softwood option that provides structural support while keeping large items easier to ship. We also feature unique materials like Laminex, a high-pressure laminate (HPL) product that we apply to birch ply to achieve a broad palette of textures and colours. In select designs, we use Crafted Hardwood - a structural timber made from rescued pulp logs using innovative Australian technology that mimics natural wood textures. This material is perfect for robust, chunky applications like tables. While we love exploring natural finishes, we generally avoid plywood for outdoor use due to its moisture sensitivity, especially in harsh Australian climates where solid timber like Blackbutt performs more reliably.

What truly sets our collections apart is their thoughtful design and material intelligence. Each product is built not only to look good, but to last—made from sustainably sourced or rescued materials and crafted to serve a purpose long into the future. Our designs promote longevity and reduce environmental impact, with a focus on heirloom quality rather than seasonal trends. Plywood, for instance, uses more of the tree than solid wood planks and requires less material to achieve the same structural strength—making it both resource-efficient and environmentally conscious. We also prioritise low-VOC finishes to support better air quality in homes and workplaces.

To help customers care for their furniture, we provide a comprehensive maintenance guide and a tailored ‘project passport’ with each order. These outline specific cleaning recommendations, based on extensive in-house testing of common spills and cleaning products, so you can confidently preserve the beauty and performance of your So Watt piece over time. Our commitment to sustainability extends beyond materials - it’s about working with our clients to create deeply personal, long-lasting furniture that serves both their lifestyle and the planet. Through customisation, thoughtful design, and authentic craftsmanship, So Watt's collections bring warmth, efficiency, and enduring style to every space.

FAQ

What is Birch Ply, and how is it used in your collections?

Because our Wooden pegboards come in all different sizes, they really don't need much space at all. However the minimum space is 600mm by 600mm as that is the smallest sized peg board So Watt offer.

What is the difference between Birch Plywood and Hoop Pine Plywood?

Birch Ply and Hoop Pine Ply are both constructed the same way, which means they are both constructed from multiple thin layers of the timber, pressed together in alternating grain directions to give it strength. The only difference is that the species of tree is different (the Birch tree or the Pine tree). Birch timber is considered a hybrid soft/hard wood, whereas Hoop Pine is considered a soft wood. Therefore we only offer Birch Ply for a cabinet door in a joinery situation because it will be more stable. Hoop Pine Ply is our preferred material for furniture, because it is more supported by the construction and is also lightweight which is better for shipping bulky furniture items.

What makes Laminex different from other materials?

Laminex is a brand of laminate, as are Formica and Fenix. All of these brands produce a laminate material but use different recipes. Essentially, laminate is a lot of papery material pressed under a lot of pressure with a glue bond. This is why you will often see it referred to as HPL or High Pressure Laminate. Depending on the brand or collection of laminate, other materials and chemicals can be added to change the appearance and performance. We press laminate onto our birch plywood as all laminate requires a substrate.

Can I use Blackbutt Ply for both indoor and outdoor projects?

We don’t recommend using plywood for outdoor projects. Water can find its way between the layers of timber and swell it from within. Sometimes solid blackbutt will be used outside, but there are always risks with timber in our harsh climate. Plywood doesn’t perform as well as solid wood when considering moisture.

What is Crafted Hardwood, and why is it used in high-quality furniture?

Crafted Hardwood is a relatively new brand creating structural timber using 3RT’s world first Australian innovative technology. Crafted Hardwood’s scientifically engineered timber mimics the natural texture and characteristics thanks to its construction from typically low-value pulp logs, aka real timber. The process rescues the timber from being turned into garden mulch or just discarded, and uses a water-based nano glue technology to replicate the natural bonding in a tree. Because all the layers of rescued timber are laid in the same direction (unlike ply where the layers alternate direction), Crafted Hardwood can warp or ‘cup’ if too thin. Therefore we like to use if for chunky components like tables.

How do I care for furniture made from Birch Ply, Blackbutt Ply, and other woods?

We have created a detailed care and maintenance guide that is available from our downloads section. We have tested various common mishaps such as coffee spills, red wine glass rings, splashes of oil and hot sauce, and then tested 10 common household cleaners. The findings are summarised in our maintenance guide along with recommended brands of spray and wipe to easily care for your plywood piece.

Depending on the material and finish you have ordered, the information on caring for your So Watt piece will vary. We send you a little ‘project passport’ with a summary of these materials and finishes specific to your project.

Are your materials sourced sustainably?

It’s important to measure sustainability in a broad sense. For example, a material can be organic, but is it travelling a long way? Or perhaps a material is man made, but can be forever recycled keeping it out of landfill. The easiest way to be sustainable is to work with what we already have. Second to this is using materials that promote a healthy planet. Plywood uses more of a tree than a solid wood slab or plank, and less plywood is needed to achieve strong spans when compared to a timber plank so you are using less material but all of the tree. By growing trees we are storing carbon, so it’s important to promote the use of timber in sustainable plantations where fast growing trees capture the carbon and then are replaced with new trees to continue that work. Our materials and finishes are also low-VOC for healthier air quality in your home. We hope that by creating custom furniture together with our clients, we are making something that will be valued for decades, hopefully even generations. We are focused on heirloom pieces, not furniture trends that end up in landfill with the change of season.

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