Creating Inspiring Pieces

September 20th, 2011

I believe that furniture serves its purpose best when it has meaning; whether designed by an artist, or having historical or family significance. I worked with talented craftsman George Merrill to create a conference table for my St. George Studio using reclaimed wood with historical worth. The base was designed to look like a bridge given the history of the wood as you will read below.

I asked George to take a few photos of the construction of the table and share its history with you.





The legs of this table were created from the Jarrah wood from an old bridge in Queensland Australia



Forgotten dreams
People from years long past, the silent ones that left this world as quietly as they came, never seeking infamy or notoriety, rather just to build something for their family, to make their children’s life better than their own. Their simple dreams and aspirations not of grand homes or fine clothes, were virtually void of extravagance and grandeur. Instead aspirations of dry
warm homes in the winter, and dinner tables laid out daily with food that feeds the soul as well as the body were their dreams. We rarely hear or read about these people, the ones with earth under their fingernails and sun baked wrinkles carved into their faces. Now, at this very moment their blood still silently flows through our veins.

Is it possible to connect with the forgotten dreams of our forefathers? To sift beyond the cluttered remnants of the questionable aspirations most of us work towards today?

Holding a heavy weathered piece of old Jarrah wood reclaimed from a turn of the century bridge just may be that connection.

Sometime between the late 1800s and early 1900s in Queensland Australia a callused hardened hand of a simple laborer took this very Jarrah beam from a horse drawn wagon, heaved it onto his work weary shoulder and carried it to the spot that would be this beams home for the next 100 years.

At the end of that day this man went home, washed the days work grime off his hands, arms, and face then sat down to a simple table with his wife and children to enjoy the food that his daily labors provided. Later that night not giving another thought about that wood beam he laid down in bed next to his wife and quickly drifted off to sleep. Only to arise well before sunrise the next morning, eat breakfast, and start it all over again.

Could something from this man be imprinted upon this old Jarrah beam? Could this beam serve as some sort of interface between this man, his world, his dreams, and ours?

We don’t know the answer to that question. However, there is one thing we do know, we can take those materials and resources from this mans world and reintegrate them into ours. These precious reclaimed items of wood and steel can be reintroduced into our world today. They can serve as a respectful reminder of this man, his dreams, and his world and hopefully, somehow, bring a richer meaning to our world.





Hand cut mortise and tenon joints held firmly in place with hard wood pins.



In the 18th and 19th centuries people didn’t have readily available kilns for drying wood. Nor did they have available the years of time required to properly air-dry wood planks for building furniture. The bread-board edge was attached to both ends of tables to hold the planks in place and straight as the unseasoned planks continued to dry and move over time.

Being a very dynamic material wood will continue to move, expanding and contracting with the weather changes it is exposed to. There is nothing a wood worker can do to stop this. In fact if the wood worker either ignores this fact or attempts to restrain the wood from its absolute eventual movement he is assigning to his piece of furniture a premature course of self-destruction.