I’ve owned my share of coffee tables
over the years – metal, glass, plywood, etc. – the usual temporary furniture catalog fodder…it was about time for something a bit more personal. For almost a year, my daily commute to work
would take me past a small urban tree recycle operation in the empty lot behind
a self-storage complex, where amidst the mountains of bark dust and
ready-to-use fire wood, propped up against a shipping container, towered a
couple of ponderosa pine slabs the size of pick-up trucks. After finally mustering up the nerve to ask,
I was finally able to negotiate a single 500 pound, 9 by 3½ foot, 3 inch thick
slab into my garage – where it laid, dormant, drying over the next half year.
Insert about a month of sawing,
planning, sanding, gilding, sheathing, hammering and finishing here…
Salvaged elements of rustic beauty and
heavy industry fuse to create this commanding coffee table. Living in a port city, I intentionally drew
inspiration from an era of majestic ocean-liners from centuries gone by; with
highly polished wooden decks and hand-hammered copper boiler plates. This contrast in materials led to a uniquely
distinctive centerpiece; especially as the late afternoon sun strikes the
table’s copper-clad underbelly bathing the living room floor in a warm glow of
red and orange hues.
A single 6 by 3½ to 4 foot 3 inch
thick ponderosa pine slab forms the rustic table top – its 2 cut sides are
sanded smooth to counter the tree’s 2 live edges; an almost 1½ inch thick bark.
During the drying period, the slab
sustained a dozen lateral cracks, which I filled and gilded with copper leaf
prior to finishing its surface.
Complete
with the illusion of concealing a copper vein beneath its skin, the entire slab
was coated (unstained) with 7 layers of polyurethane, not only to protect, but
to extenuate the wood’s natural knots and burly grain. At 16 inches tall, the four legged base boasts
over 32 square feet of salvaged copper plating, 16 feet of 1 inch copper piping
and a half pound of attaching copper hardware – amassing,
with the top, a staggering 400 pounds.
From the moment i set foot into our all-satin eggshell, inside-of-a-shoebox design inspired diningroom it was a no-brainer to expand the color theme of the northwestern tones from the beach glass chandelier...
The ivory chair rail and powder-blue wainscoating is difficult to see in the image above...though the image to the left alludes to its weathered finish (used natural flower for that - got the idea of "antiquing" from MTV's Jackass).
