The Collection
Driftwood Works
Sculptures, furniture, and decorative objects. All unique, all unrepeatable, all river-born.
Driftwood reborn as luxury. Sculptures, furniture, and objects shaped by decades of water and completed by human hands.
Our Approach
Every piece of driftwood has already been sculpted by the river over decades. We do not replace that work — we complete it.
All DRIFTHAUS wood is sourced from rivers where it has accumulated naturally — never extracted from living trees. Our collectors know specific river sections across four continents, checking after seasonal floods.
We do not design and then find wood to match. Each piece of driftwood suggests its own form. The sculptor's role is to hear that suggestion and respond with as little intervention as necessary to make it permanent.
DRIFTHAUS works are never painted, stained, or artificially aged. The wood's color, texture, and patina are the result of years of water, sun, and movement. We preserve them, not replace them.
The Collection
Sculptures, furniture, and decorative objects. All unique, all unrepeatable, all river-born.
The Studio
DRIFTHAUS studio occupies a converted mill building on the banks of the Willamette River in Oregon. The location is not coincidental — the studio was built here because this is where the wood comes from.
After heavy winter floods, our collectors walk specific river sections along the Willamette and its tributaries. They photograph every significant piece and assess it in situ before collection. What is left behind is left for a reason.
The studio has three main areas: the drying hall, where collected wood rests for six to twenty-four months; the workshop, where five craftspeople work simultaneously on different pieces; and the finishing room, where the only chemical interventions allowed are wax and natural oils.
The Method
Every DRIFTHAUS piece takes between two months and three years from collection to completion. The wood decides.
After winter floods recede, our collectors walk specific river sections with a practiced eye for exceptional driftwood. We assess structural integrity, surface character, and sculptural potential. Only about one in fifty pieces found is collected.
Collected wood is stacked in our open drying hall for a minimum of six months — often up to two years for dense species. During this time, moisture leaves slowly and the wood's final form reveals itself. Some pieces reveal cracks that become features; others reveal hidden grain patterns.
Before any tool is raised, the assigned craftsperson spends at least a week living with the piece — moving around it, photographing it at different hours, turning it on its various faces. The form that becomes the work emerges from this time, not from a sketch made beforehand.
We remove only what needs to be removed — a split, a structurally weak section, a loose piece of bark. We add what needs to be added — a steel pin for a joint, a resin fill for a crack that would otherwise grow. The intervention is always the minimum necessary.
Natural beeswax or raw linseed oil, applied by hand and buffed to a satin finish that preserves the wood's color without adding shine that would feel artificial. The finish must disappear into the wood, not sit on top of it.
Our History
Founders Karl and Ingrid Hausman, both furniture makers, discover an extraordinary piece of bleached cedar after a major Willamette flood. They spend three months completing it. It sells at a Portland gallery for $8,400.
DRIFTHAUS moves from a garage to the current mill building on the Willamette. The large drying hall becomes possible, enabling work with much larger specimens.
First collection of driftwood sourced outside Oregon, from the Dordogne River in France. The European specimens — primarily bleached walnut and ash — introduce new tonal qualities to the work.
Launch of the first DRIFTHAUS furniture pieces — console tables and benches using single-slab driftwood as live-edge tops. Immediately waitlisted by twelve months.
First collection from the Amazon basin in cooperation with an indigenous community, using flood-deposited cedar and cedar-like tropical species. The resulting pieces introduce unprecedented scale to the collection.
Recognition
Custom Work
DRIFTHAUS accepts commissions for specific spaces or intentions. We can work to a brief — a particular size, wood species preference, or function — but we cannot guarantee exact outcomes. The river has already made the primary decisions.
Commission timeline: 6–18 months from brief to delivery. We provide photographic updates as suitable pieces arrive in the drying hall and as work progresses. Commissions from $3,200 for desk-scale objects to $45,000 for monumental installations.