From garages to kitchens: PlyPlay's endless design possibilities
Plywood. Long known as a strong, cost-effective and highly versatile building material, its true potential for creating unique spaces is still often overlooked. Bates Surfaces’ prefinished PlyPlay is out to change that.
Satin finish, natural warmth
Finished in a smooth, UV-cured satin surface, PlyPlay comes in three colours each with a delicate pearl sheen, based on mineral mica, to accentuate the natural warmth of the timber. The product has transformed new builds and renovations around the country, from a steel-clad pavilion overlooking the Southern Alps to a Northland barn conversion.
Natural timber PlyPlay shines in a multipurpose barn renovation
Interior designer Sonya Cotter found that PlyPlay perfectly suited her brief to renovate a family’s 1970s barn in Rodney, north of Auckland. Basing her design on PlyPlay Naturally Naked in clear coated birch, she created a multipurpose space that would be a seasonal cooking school, movie night venue, or rainy-day retreat for the kids.
"Plywood offers the character of timber more cost-effectively and it suits the barn-style interior. It has that vernacular look we so enjoy. And with fairly minimal decor, the birch PlyPlay has a design edge we were after. The prefinished UV-cured surface has a wonderful satin finish and adds a real lustre."
With the natural timber colour used on two side walls and the ceiling, Sonya then chose to emphasise the ceiling’s height and apex by using PlyPlay in black-stained Double Trouble for the end walls. Here the natural grain still shines through, so that while the two colours contrast each other, they still present a unified finish.
Bringing out the edges for subtle, stylish accents
Another feature of this design is negative detailing, providing visual emphasis that’s simple to achieve yet refined and effective. Using a 3mm spacer to create uniform gaps between the panels allowed Sonya to also emphasise PlyPlay’s striated edge, for a subtle, elegant effect.
"One of the things I most love about ply is the edge,’ she notes, ‘so exposing that edge in the design is critical for me as a designer. We’ve expressed it around the doorways and windows, and also on each wall or ceiling corner where the ply changes from one plane to the next."
And to prove PlyPlay’s versatility, Sonya specified it the construction of most of the kitchen cabinetry, using natural oil on the edges instead of varnish. "Plywood is much more water-resistant than MDF, and PlyPlay panels are prefinished with a UV-cured coating which is more durable than its equivalents and neater than non-factory coatings."
Written and first produced for EBOSS