Our latest designs have recently been installed in their new home in London. The brief called for a coffee table in walnut and some large dining benches in ash. The client enjoys a modern, unfussy aesthetic and wanted his new furniture to reflect this. The design we settled on for the coffee table employs a technique we often use whereby we join the top and sides out of consecutive boards, so that when they are assembled the table looks as if it is "wrapped around" out of one piece of wood.
We built a small plinth underneath the table so that it appears to float an inch off the floor. There is also a divider on the leftt hand side of the picture above which employs a panel of black fenix ntm. This enables TV or DVD remotes to be stored under the table and out of sight from the front. For anyone who hasn't seen or used this product before fenix is a fantastic laminate material, it's soft to the touch, doesn't fingerprint and absorbs most light. Note how "matte" it looks in the photo below, in a situation where most man made laminates would appear shiny. We were very impressed and can't wait to experiment more with this high quality material on future projects.
The benches are crafted in solid ash and are 2 metres long. In keeping with the clean lined look of the property the client did not want extra legs supporting the benches in the middle and also did not wish for us to use stretcher rails to tie the bench's legs together and stop them from splaying out when it is sat on. Instead we ran lengths of steel across the length of the bench under the top to reinforce the wooden rails and used braces in each corner to help make the legs behave themselves! The tops look beautiful and simple in a white oil.
Here's an image of the benches installed with the client's existing dining table.