Most of the dining tables I make are commissioned for one room and one family. A few are always on the gallery floor, and you're welcome to sit at them. All of them are built at the bench on Blythe Road, in the Margaret River region, from Western Australian hardwood I've chosen board by board.
Round tables on a single pedestal, long tables on arched bases, trestles and live-edge slabs. Jarrah, marri and blackbutt. Each one carries a gum leaf inlaid on the underside.
[Signature]
First designed in the early 1980s and widely considered John's masterpiece — a single sculptural cone supporting a disc top, with a smaller cone rising at centre. The engineering of the all-timber base is complex enough that only seven original Cone Tables exist anywhere in the world; the imitations swap the base for stainless steel.
[Signature]
Two arched jarrah buttresses cradle a long slab top, bridged by a hidden spine. Collectors prize the Parallel Universe for the way it bridges functional furniture and abstract fine art — a dining table you can also read as sculpture.
[Dining]
A single arched marri trestle supports a long honey-grained top. The arch is laminated and curved in the workshop; the timber comes from a tree felled south of the gallery in the 1990s and dried since.
[Dining]
Commissioned for a coastal home in Geographe Bay. Pedestal-based, jarrah top, sized so six guests can sit and still see the water.
[Shapes, sizes, timber]
Round and long, mostly, and a few that don't fit either word. The Ocean Round Table stands on a single pedestal. The Marri Arch rests on one laminated arch. The Parallel Universe sits on two arched jarrah buttresses, and the Cone Table balances a disc top on a single timber cone. I also build trestle bases, twin pedestals, square pedestal tables and live-edge slabs.
The edge is a decision of its own. A square edge looks crisp but bruises if you knock it. A rounded edge is softer on the wrist when you eat. A chamfer catches the light. Breadboard ends, bevels, live edge: we settle it at the drawing.
Size follows the room and the chairs. A commissioned table is drawn to your dimensions, and to the doorway it has to come through. I once made a piece that wouldn't fit in the client's lift because nobody had checked. I check now.
Heavy, deep red-brown, and it settles toward chestnut as it ages. Dried properly, a jarrah table won't sag and won't twist, and an oil finish pulls the red out of the grain. It grows in the South West of WA and nowhere else.
Paler and honey-coloured, sometimes with pink through it, and a touch lighter than jarrah. I reach for it for the gum veins: dark streaks where the tree sealed a wound. A marri top with a strong vein down the centre reads like a piece of landscape.
Pale yellow-brown, straight-grained and even. It's what I suggest when someone wants a hard-wearing table that looks a little lighter than jarrah. A kitchen table that's going to take kids and dogs.
Choosing between them, or curious about sheoak and tuart? Five WA hardwoods every furniture buyer should know.
Live edge, trestle, pedestal and square. Some of these have sold; others are still here. They show the range a commission can start from.
Live-Edge Dining Slab
Sculpted Trestle Dining
Pyramid-Pedestal Dining
Marri Live-Edge Dining
Twin-Pillar Dining + Sideboard
Trestle Dining Table
Twin-Pedestal Dining
High-Back Dining Chairs
Square Pedestal Dining
Two Arched Dining Tables
Signature curved-arch trestles, side by side on the gallery floor
[Commissions]
Six steps, three to six months from the agreed drawing. The full process, including deposits and gifts, is on the commissions page.
01
Before dimensions, I want to know how the table gets used. Do you sit for two hours after dinner? Do the kids do homework on it? Then the room: where the light comes from, what the floor is, what other timber is in there. Pam usually asks the thing I've forgotten, like the colour of the rug or whether there's a cat.
02
I bring you into the timber shed. Some of the slabs in there have been air-drying for years, waiting for the right job. Sometimes a slab decides the design. Sometimes the design comes first and we go looking for boards to suit it. Either way the timber is chosen with you in the room, not from a catalogue.
03
In pencil first, then a final drawing with watercolour washes so you can see how the timber will read once it's oiled. We settle the edge, the base and the proportions. A table two centimetres too tall feels wrong forever. When the drawing is agreed I take a 30% deposit and start.
04
Jarrah air-dries for about a year per inch of thickness, then a low-temperature kiln brings it down to 10 to 12 per cent moisture, and the boards sit in the workshop for at least a month after that. A top is a few boards, from the same tree when I can manage it, joined so it reads as one piece. It's fixed to the base on sliding battens so it can move with the seasons. A top and base take 120 to 180 hours at the bench.
05
Hard wax oil or Danish oil, 24 hours between coats, three or four coats depending on how thirsty the timber turns out to be. The finished table sits in the workshop for a week while the finish cures. Pam walks around it slowly before it goes anywhere, which is how I know she's looking properly.
06
Most tables I deliver myself. I put it where we agreed, leave a tin of the oil I used, and show you how to look after it. The balance is paid on delivery, not before.
[Care]
Not much, which is the point. Wipe spills when they happen. Put a board under hot pans and coasters under glasses. Keep it out of direct sun if you can. Oil it once a year or so: a little oil on a lint-free rag, rubbed along the grain, the excess wiped off. Skip the spray polish; it builds a film that goes cloudy.
Lay oily rags flat outside to dry before you bin them, because bunched up they can catch fire. And if the table picks up a deep scratch or a mark that won't lift, bring it back. I can refurbish it.
Caring for jarrah and marri furniture has the full routine.
[Delivery]
Yes, almost always. Pam and I have sent pieces to London, Singapore, Hong Kong, Auckland, San Francisco and the Gulf. We talk about shipping before I cut any timber, because I need to know the doorways, the stairwell and the lift. Some bases come apart for travel: the Cone Table breaks down into the cone and the top.
An overseas table leaves in a custom plywood crate, foam-lined and braced inside. Bigger pieces go in export-rated crates of heat-treated, ISPM-15 stamped timber. The crate is trucked to Fremantle and goes by sea from there: about three to four weeks on the water to Singapore, six to eight to the UK, four to six to the US west coast. Allow four to twelve weeks from the day it leaves the workshop.
Every piece is insured for its full value, door to door, and the insurance is in the quote. Most international clients pay between AUD 1,200 and AUD 4,500 to ship a single piece, depending on size and destination. Duty and GST or VAT at the other end are the buyer's, and they vary by country. We supply the export paperwork: commercial invoice, packing list, certificate of origin and the crate's ISPM-15 certificate.
“Door to door” usually means the front of the building; inside delivery and unpacking are extra. For delivery within WA and interstate, see delivery and shipping on the commissions page.
[Questions]
It's the one I use most. Jarrah is dense and heavy, and once it has been dried properly it doesn't sag or twist under a long top. Because the supply is limited, real jarrah costs more than imported lookalikes. If a cheap table is being sold as jarrah, look underneath: veneers and stains hide on top, not below.
Yes, in jarrah and marri. With a live-edge slab the edge of the table is the edge of the tree, so I take what the tree gives me and the slab usually decides the design. I had one marri slab sit in the shed for four years until the right person put her hand on it and said “that one.” There are live-edge tables in the photographs above, and slabs in the shed you can look at in person.
That depends on the room and on how you eat, which is why it's the first thing we talk about. A round table on a single pedestal keeps the legs out of the way: the Ocean Round Table is 1400mm across and seats six. A long table seats more people in a narrower room: the Marri Arch is 2400mm, the Parallel Universe 2700mm. Bring the measurements of the room and I'll draw both if you can't decide.
Three to six months from the day we agree the drawing. Sometimes longer, never shorter. The timber has to be at the right moisture before I cut it, the joinery is slow, and the oil needs time between coats. If you need a table by Christmas and it's June, we should start now. If it's October, ask about a table already in the gallery.
The Marri Arch Dining Table is from A$14,500 and the Ocean Round Table is A$11,800. The Cone Table and Parallel Universe Table are POA: ask and we'll tell you. A commission is quoted from the drawing, once the size, timber and base are settled. The deposit is 30%, the balance on delivery.
It moves. A solid top can shift 8 to 12mm per metre of width between a dry summer and a wet winter. Screw it down hard and it cracks. Every dining table I make sits on sliding battens so the top can breathe.
Yes. The gallery is open every day, 10am to 4pm. After-hours visits by arrangement for special requests.Sit at the tables, look at the joinery underneath, and look through the viewing window into the workshop. I'm at the bench most days. Directions and hours.
Every one has a gum leaf, cut by hand and inlaid flush on the underside. If you ever buy one of my tables second-hand, that's how you check.
Start a table
A few photographs, rough dimensions and how many you seat is enough to start. Or come to the gallery and sit at one. Open every day, 10am to 4pm.