OCEAN TABLE
O C E A N T A B L E
This is a table for favourite clients who are frequent entertainers, usually for parties of 6-8 but often 8-10 and sometimes as many as 14. It's quite a challenge to design a sturdy table that will stretch from 7' to 12' with stages in between; be light enough to manhandle; have plenty of space for feet and knees and
store all the spare leaves … but I was told that if I could solve all that then I could have as much fun as I liked with carving on it!
Carving opportunities are hard to find on a dining table, most of it is out of sight, but I know a man who was brought up on a tea plantation in Ceylon and has an heirloom table heavily worked on the top by local craftsmen and he assured me that it would pass my clients' 'soup' test and has worked well for him for forty years. So we decided to risk carving on the surface. It still had to be practical though with the cuts kept shallow [no more than 3 or 4 millimetres deep] and was constantly tested for stability with a long stemmed wineglass slid across the increasingly textured surface ~ usually empty, at least until sundown.
The ends are 'his and hers', the world's ocean creatures and the birds and flowers of The Isle of May, to remind them of a lifetime of wildlife adventures, many of the images are even taken from their own photographs and personal experiences.
Carving opportunities are hard to find on a dining table, most of it is out of sight, but I know a man who was brought up on a tea plantation in Ceylon and has an heirloom table heavily worked on the top by local craftsmen and he assured me that it would pass my clients' 'soup' test and has worked well for him for forty years. So we decided to risk carving on the surface. It still had to be practical though with the cuts kept shallow [no more than 3 or 4 millimetres deep] and was constantly tested for stability with a long stemmed wineglass slid across the increasingly textured surface ~ usually empty, at least until sundown.
The ends are 'his and hers', the world's ocean creatures and the birds and flowers of The Isle of May, to remind them of a lifetime of wildlife adventures, many of the images are even taken from their own photographs and personal experiences.
