Some furniture politely waits against a wall and tries not to make a scene. This sideboard appears to have rolled in from a cheerful cartoon forest, put on chrome shoes, and announced that storage should really have more personality.
The Yinka Ilori Half Log Sideboard is a sculptural storage cabinet from the Yinka Ilori x Dunelm collaboration, and its entire argument is right there in the name. It is a long, warm, rounded sideboard shaped like a sliced log, except instead of being found on a woodland walk, it is standing in your living room on slim stainless steel legs and quietly judging your existing media console.
It is not just a novelty silhouette with nowhere to put the spare candles. Dunelm lists it as a practical sideboard with push-open doors, concealed shelving, and a central open shelf, which means it can do the responsible adult thing while still looking like a piece of furniture that escaped from a design museum’s children’s wing.
The front profile is the obvious hook. Rather than the usual flat box with doors, the cabinet has a soft, curved half-log form that gives it a chunkier, friendlier presence. The ash veneer finish keeps the piece in the world of warm, natural furniture, while the chrome legs pull it back toward something more modern and slightly theatrical. It is basically what happens when a tree trunk gets a London design education and learns to hold board games.
A Sideboard That Refuses To Be A Rectangle
Yinka Ilori’s work is known for color, pattern, memory, and a very specific kind of optimism that makes ordinary objects feel like they have a backstory. This Dunelm collaboration brings that energy into a more accessible home collection, and the Half Log Sideboard is one of the pieces that makes the collection easy to understand at a glance. It takes a familiar furniture category and gives it a body shape you would not expect from something whose main job is hiding remotes.
Dunelm describes the collaboration as a new and exclusive collection inspired by links between Ilori’s London upbringing and Dunelm’s Leicester market origins. Wallpaper covered the launch in July 2026 as a 40-piece furniture and homeware collaboration, which helps explain why this sideboard feels less like a single odd item and more like part of a larger colorful household universe.
The sideboard’s practical side is still very present. The product page lists it as ready assembled, with a wipe-clean care note, a two-year guarantee, and one sideboard in the pack. In other words, it is not asking you to spend an entire Saturday interpreting flat-pack hieroglyphics while your living room slowly becomes a cardboard quarry.
For people who like their furniture to have a bit of theater but still need it to behave, the Half Log Sideboard lands in a useful middle zone. It can store tableware in a dining room, hold games and cables in a living room, or act as the show-off piece in an entryway where guests are forced to ask, “Is that a log?” before they have even removed their shoes.
- Curved half-log front for a sculptural look that is much softer than a standard rectangular cabinet.
- Push-open doors, so the front stays clean without visible handles interrupting the rounded shape.
- Concealed shelving for the less glamorous household things that still deserve a hiding place.
- Central open shelf for display items, media gear, or the one decorative bowl everyone owns for no clear reason.
- Ash veneer finish paired with stainless steel legs for a mix of warm wood and polished modern detail.
That mix of organic shape and shiny metal is doing a lot of the visual work. The cabinet reads as warm and natural from the front, but the leg frame keeps it light enough that it does not look like somebody parked a canoe against the wall. The raised base also gives the piece a little breathing room, which matters when the main cabinet body is deliberately chunky.
| Detail | Dunelm Listing |
|---|---|
| Product type | Sideboard / storage cabinet |
| Dimensions | H 50cm x W 180cm x D 46.5cm |
| Materials | MDF, ash veneer, stainless steel |
| Finish / color | Oak effect / light wood |
| Assembly | Ready assembled |
| Weight | 37kg |
| Guarantee | 2 years |
The Cabinet For People With Calm Walls And Chaotic Taste
The easiest way to imagine this piece is as the sideboard you buy when your room is already fairly sensible and you want exactly one object to have a small personality crisis in the best possible way. It is not neon. It is not covered in decals. It does not scream. It simply has the curved wooden face of a friendly architectural pastry, and that may be enough.
Because it is 180cm wide, this is not a tiny accent cabinet pretending to be important. It has real room-spanning presence, closer to a media-unit or dining-room storage piece than a hallway afterthought. That width is part of what makes the half-log idea work: a short version might look like a novelty stool, but stretched out, the curved front becomes a genuine sculptural line.
The central open shelf adds a useful break in the form. Without it, the whole cabinet might become one continuous wooden tube, which sounds fun until you remember that most homes also require places to put the internet box that blinks like it knows secrets. The open middle gives you a practical landing zone while the left and right push-open sections hide the less photogenic cargo.
It is also nice that Dunelm kept the material story straightforward. MDF gives the piece its shaped structure, ash veneer provides the warm surface, and stainless steel handles the leg frame. That combination makes more sense for a mass-retail sculptural cabinet than pretending the whole thing was lovingly hewn from a mythical single log by a woodland artisan with excellent branding.
The care instruction is equally normal: wipe clean with a soft cloth. That is exactly what you want from furniture that looks unusual enough to become a conversation starter but still has to survive cups, keys, mail, dust, and the mysterious sticky fingerprint that appears in every home even when no children are present.
Where It Fits Best
This sideboard seems especially suited to spaces that need storage but do not need another beige rectangle silently giving up. In a dining room, it can hold serveware while becoming the visual anchor. In a living room, it can support decor or a TV setup if the dimensions work for your gear. In a hallway or open-plan area, it can operate as the “yes, I chose this on purpose” piece that makes the rest of the room feel more intentional.
The style is playful, but the oak-effect finish keeps it from becoming overly loud. That makes it easier to pair with white walls, colorful art, patterned rugs, or other Yinka Ilori x Dunelm pieces. It could also be the warm wood object in a room with cooler materials, where the chrome legs help it speak the same language as metal lighting, chair frames, or modern hardware.
There are practical limitations, of course. At 37kg and 180cm wide, this is a serious piece of furniture, not something you casually rotate around the room every time the moon changes. The curved front also means it is visually distinctive; if your decorating goal is “please let all furniture disappear into a spreadsheet,” this cabinet may be too emotionally available.
But for the right room, that is the appeal. It gives you the storage function of a sideboard with the presence of a design object, and it does so without turning into unusable gallery furniture. You can still put things inside it. You can still clean it. You can still explain to guests that yes, the log cabinet is real and no, it does not require watering.
Dunelm lists the Yinka Ilori Half Log Sideboard at GBP 599 through its UK product page. Availability can vary by region and stock, but the listing describes it as part of the Yinka Ilori x Dunelm collaboration and shows the Half Log Sideboard as an oak-effect, ready-assembled storage piece with push-open doors and shelving.
- Product: Yinka Ilori Half Log Sideboard
- Seller: Dunelm
- Designer / collaboration: Yinka Ilori x Dunelm
- Core function: sculptural sideboard with concealed storage and an open central shelf
- Size: H 50cm x W 180cm x D 46.5cm
- Materials: MDF, ash veneer, and stainless steel
- Listed price: GBP 599
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Turns a basic storage category into a memorable statement piece. | The half-log shape is intentionally distinctive, so it will not disappear quietly. |
| Push-open doors keep the curved front visually clean. | The central open shelf means some items remain visible. |
| Ready assembled according to Dunelm’s listing. | At 37kg, moving it around is not a casual one-person hobby. |
| Ash veneer and chrome legs balance warm and modern materials. | The wide 180cm footprint needs a room with enough wall space. |
| Concealed shelves make it more useful than a purely decorative object. | Its playful design may not suit very traditional interiors. |
| Part of a larger Yinka Ilori x Dunelm home collection. | Availability depends on Dunelm stock and market access. |
Where to find This Half-Log Sideboard Turns Storage Into Sculptural Furniture
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