Shoe Rack

Each tower holds three drawers; the seat sits over one long low drawer between them. The tops of the towers are black marble, and the seat is the same marble at the same thickness, dropped to sitting height between two marble cheeks, so the two towers stand as shoulders either side of it and the drop in the marble line reads as a bench, not a notch. The whole piece stands on a plinth, so shoes and brooms never touch the wood.

Walnut for the drawers, because a drawer is pulled by hand a dozen times a day and the wood warms to it; black marble for the tops and the seat, because they are set down on, sat on and wiped. Black marble on walnut is a dark top on a warm body, and the plinth lifts the body clear of the floor, so a wet umbrella leaned against the piece meets stone and not timber.

It stands inside the front door. A person sits on the marble, opens a drawer and puts the shoes in; the keys and the post go on the tops. The seat is stone because it is sat on with wet coats and shoes in hand, and it is placed between the towers because a person sitting down wants something at each shoulder.