Going to Build

another custom cherry dining room

we shipped out another cherry dining room wednesday ... and got a nice email below from the clients after it arrived yesterday, and that always makes us feel good ...
click the photos to enlarge them ...
the project consisted of a 52 x 86 pedestal dining table with one 22" leaf, 8 of our contemporary transitional chairs, and a 7 tall corner cupboard. the full plan view is shown below ...
as usual, we got our wood from irion lumber and, though it was close, we were able to fit the whole table top on 4 boards from the same log.
we start the base construction with 3 layers of 3/4" plywood for strength and stability and veneer that with either shop made or store bought +/- 1/16th" veneer. in this case, since we were tight for lumber, we used 1/16th" cherry veneer from certainly wood . it was beautiful stuff.
the main base support is a truncated pyramid, or hopper geometric construction that require slight adjustments to the miter angles. steel runners are from our friends at moin hardware.
bottom view showing the angled aprons and center stiffener. the clients requested room to cross their legs without interference from the table aprons. this was actually a new design for us, but it gave the table top a nice light floaty look.
after the halves were glued up and cut to shape, trevor routed the pockets for the inlays and we installed them in our usual fashion, using bent temporary brads to apply some side pressure to the inlay borders as the glue set.
he also made a set of patterns for the shop made burl veneer which he then cut on the cnc as thick blocks, which we later resawed into the matching patterns you can see in the photos below. the burl was from berkshire products in sheffield, mass.
cutting veneers from solid burl is always a challenge in that the burls themselves are full of bark inclusions, small voids and generally pretty rough grain ... we like to leave a little of that texture which imparts a distinctive not from the furniture store feeling.
the final inlaid surfaces are handplaned level and scraped and sanded and the resulting subtle texture felt when you run your fingers across the grain is also one of our signature elements.
nice pattern in the single 22" leaf. the design trevor created allowed him to use the same block for the triangles in the table halves and the leaf ... pretty clever.
next, the chairs ... 8 of em ... how many pieces total? interesting thought, lets see ... 18 pieces per chair (the splats are veneered on quartered cherry) x 8 ... sounds like 144, plus the seat blanks.
weve changed from the original corner block design on the left (a total pain in the neck to fit and install) to a routed solid seat base glued up integral to the whole chair, which makes me feel confident on my lifetime chair guarantee. if youre not sure what i mean by routed solid seat base, you can see a stack of the seats in this photo from a previous post.
tah dah ... nice fabric choice ...
the corner cupboard ... natural cherry with beaded, handplaned pine backboards, a single pane door ... pretty traditional construction design with a nice contemporary flair
in process ...
the backboards ... numbered and removed for finishing.
all for now ... get that shopping done ....