The table

Many moons ago, whilst admiring a beautiful oak table that John had made an idea was starting to hatch. I had seen a table in Roche Bobois that gave me the start. I wanted something simple, with an almost utilitarian look about it, but made in a lovely wood such as wild cherry.
Not very easy to find, various visits to woodyards provided us with the necessary. Thickness was always a problem. So John decided to laminate boards to get sufficient thickness for the legs.

 Once this step had been made we were still struggling to work out a way to incorporate my idea of stainless steel stretchers.

Whilst discussing this with Kieran he came up withe words star-fangled nut. Although this sounded like a description of George W Bush by a dyslexic, I allowed him to take me into the weird world of bicycle headsets (I think that's what he said). Anyway, this is what one looks like. It's a grippy little thing that once it has been stuffed up a pipe it won't come out.

This meant that we could use long, neat bolts to hold the bars in place. However, the stainless steel tube was pricey, and it was still only an idea which were hoping might work so we bought a short bit of steel and Kieran showed that it could be done.

The next problem for John was that the top was subject to the dramatic temperature and humidity changes that can happen in SW France. The top was changing shape. One day it would be marginally bowed, a couple of days later dished. It might be flat an one diagonal and dished (or bowed on another). So we brought it over here where the variations would be less than in John's outside workshop.
Final construction took place here.

and, boy, does it look good? Even with the boxes that will eventually be part of the kitchen, it looks good, and the chairs look fabulous with it, too. You may have noticed in the photo above that the chair seats are different colours. Each one is different.