The simple butterfly, folding table leaf has been around since at least the 1880’s. I have a client who had a custom table with 2 butterfly leaves made in Denmark some decades ago. I built for them, off their table idea an oval table with 3 butterfly leaves. The trick with an oval table is the lack of real-estate space inside a solid table base; not veneered. I had to machine slots on the end rail for the table halves to be supported with maple runners for the table top to extend an extra 20″ on each side. Using just the center leaf allows 2 extra people, one on each end. The beauty of this addition is the table extends to a circular shaped table for conversational benefit.  With the center leaf and one of the mini leaves added it adds the eleventh person at either end

I’m working on a door of reclaimed redwood that was cut in 1880 for staves that were 10′ long. The door is 9′ with 2 adjacent side lights/panels. The door is 2.25″ thick and the window at the top is a 2′ diameter. The 2 adjacent windows are 1′ diameter. The carved discs are quit thick around each window but diminish to just outlines as it dissipates away. 

Fun, yeah?

My new web site has been almost a year in the making. I’ve had 2 people involved in its making. I believe my first blog on this new site should be devoted to all of you for writing endorsements for me. Thank you.

20 years ago I was in my Seattle gallery when I ran into clients visiting from Pennsylvania-again. They told me their chairs were so comfortable that dinner guests would stay the whole evening at the table. They asked me to contact them with new designs. I was working with up to an 18 month backlog of chairs and tables at the time. How and when new designs would occur was beyond my scope. Understand, shaping the curved lines of these chairs and tables is fun. Watching these individual parts evolve and netting the most out of the wood available is why I do woodworking. Cabinets, dressers, buffets and entertainment centers are boxes and not only redundant but hard on a person’s back. I forgot these people’s names minutes later. How many times I wished I had asked them to put in writing what they said – I’ve regretted that request.

My call out to you, whose emails I had (not that many), for endorsements was in hope that someone might write what these Pennsylvanians had said. I couldn’t specifically ask, that wouldn’t be fair. But low and behold, a number of people wrote very close to that very statement. Others had colorful praises.

Thanks to you all!
John