Cherry Coffee Table (2009)

Continuing the chronological posting of past projects.

If you have seen my previous post, then you know I took a woodworking course at the Academy of Art University in SF. Well, I took it again in 2009. By this time I had also taken a course in "Bay Area Architecture", where we had a fantastic teacher who held lectures one week and took the entire class on an excursion to see a historically significant bay area building the next week.

During this time I learned about Greene & Greene, and the craftsmen John and Peter Hall who actually created most of their wooden designed furniture etc. I think you can see the influence that had on my design for this table.

Here are two further sources of inspiration that I used for this table:

This time I decided to build the entire table out of cherry (not maple, which was made available to students), because I wanted the darker look, and since I had learned that it is a great wood to work with. This also gave me my first experience in going to a lumber yard and picking out pieces of lumber for a project.

The design was done in SketchUp again, here is a screenshot of the original design:

Through-Tenons was one feature I definitely wanted to implement. Noteworthy are also the slightly tapered legs, getting thicker at the bottom (as opposed to the other way around). This was also seen in Greene & Greene work, which was supposedly an influence from Japanese architecture and furniture.

The top was attached with figure-eight fasteners, which I really like (but have a very hard time finding in Europe, if anyone has a source, I would appreciate that!).

For all other joints the Festool Domino was used again, which was customary at our school for most joints.

For the breadboard ends of the top, one teacher suggested to make a "spring joint". This should prevent that a gap can easily form when weather changes. If I remember correctly, the breadboard end was then only glued on in the center, so that it would allow the top to expand and contract.

At that time I was also very interested in alternative finishing methods, particularly in traditional finishes like linseed oil and shellac, as opposed to modern finishes. This appealed to me not only for keeping in line with the traditional style of woodworking as it was done in past centuries, but also because I liked the VOC free aspect of shellac (once it has dried).

I bought the book Hand Applied Finishes by Jeff  Jewitt from the used book store and taught myself how to apply shellac through wiping on. I was very much hooked by the results I got, and have finished countless projects in shellac since then.

I was and still am pretty proud of this table, and it has held up very well. It served as our living room coffee table now for 15 years already.

From here on I was seriously hooked on woodworking, got myself a used Shopsmith, repurposed our subterranean basement room to a wood shop and continued to learn and build… 

Last but not least, a rendering from my re-drawing of the table in Blender, the fantastic free 3D program (still hoping to turn people on to it 🙂):