Work

An eight-seat dining table for a tall Georgian room in Clifton. The top is four boards of pippy oak out of the same butt, book-matched at the centre joint so the cluster of pin knots runs down the middle instead of hiding at the edges.

The base is a drawbored trestle with wedged through-tenons. It knocks down flat for two flights of stairs and goes back together in the room in about twenty minutes.

Timber

English oak, air-dried, Wiltshire

Size

2280 × 980 × 745 mm

Finish

Three coats hard wax oil

Bench time

Nine weeks

Four doors on a shaped plinth, made to sit under a run of windows where nothing taller would do. The carcase is dovetailed by hand at all four corners; the doors are frame-and-panel with a floating solid panel, so they move with the seasons rather than split.

The walnut came out of a single tree taken down near Chew Magna in 2016 and stickered in a barn for seven years. There was just enough of it for the doors and the top.

Timber

English walnut, with ash drawer sides

Size

1840 × 460 × 810 mm

Finish

Shellac and wax

Bench time

Eleven weeks

A hall bench with a boot shelf underneath, for a narrow entrance in Totterdown. Wedged through-tenons, left proud and planed flush once the glue had gone off. The elm came from a garden tree in Somerset that its owners had kept eleven years waiting for a use.

Timber

Wych elm

Size

1400 × 380 × 450 mm

Finish

Hard wax oil, matt

Bench time

Four weeks

A writing desk with two shallow drawers and a cable trough cut into the back rail, for a converted attic where the ceiling drops sharply on one side. The top is 620 mm deep for that reason, shallower than this shop would ordinarily advise. It works because the legs are set well in.

The drawers run on wooden runners with a kicker above, fitted by hand until they close on a cushion of air.

Timber

Ash, with cherry drawer fronts

Size

1320 × 620 × 730 mm

Finish

Oil and wax

Bench time

Six weeks

A pair of full-height cupboards either side of a chimney breast in a Victorian terrace where nothing was square and the two alcoves differed by 34 mm across their width. Scribed in on site over a day and a half.

Painted outside, oiled oak inside. The inside of a cupboard is where a house shows whether the work was done properly.

Timber

Sycamore and oak, painted fronts

Size

2 units, 2680 mm tall

Finish

Eggshell, hand brushed

Bench time

Seven weeks plus fitting

A two-part kitchen dresser: a base with three drawers over cupboards, and a separate open rack that lifts off. Cherry darkens quickly, and the owners were warned to expect a different-looking piece of furniture inside two years. So it proved.

Of everything on this page, this is the design most often asked for again, usually a little narrower.

Timber

Cherry, oak-lined drawers

Size

1500 × 500 × 2050 mm overall

Finish

Shellac and wax

Bench time

Twelve weeks