Hall table in Red Gum with parquetry top
Drawn in the air as much as it is built from timber.
A frame made from 40 mm solid Red Gum, mitred at every corner — three-way mitres with nowhere to hide. The legs, apron, and rails read as a single continuous line. At 1600 mm long, 360 mm deep, and 800 mm high, the proportions are deliberately slender. The piece is drawn in the air as much as it is built from timber.
The top is where the work lives. Approximately 500 squares of Red Gum veneer, each rotated 5–10 degrees from its neighbour. The grain direction shifts incrementally across the surface, so the parquetry catches light in a sweeping pattern that moves as you walk past it. From a distance it reads as a single shimmering field. Up close, every square is its own small decision.
This frame is a design I return to. I’ve built four or five versions with different tops — Louis cubes, Victorian Blackwood with a Huon Pine stripe down the centre, and this, the most technically demanding of them. The parquetry version starts at $3,200; simpler tops from $1,800.
Finished in blonde shellac.
