12/19/2025
This one’s a special one. It comes with a story [kind of a long story—you’ve been warned!]
Three years ago we were contracted to make a large expanding table that would be shipped to a home in Michigan. And we did, and it went smoothly. Until, six months later, I got a call. The table top, which was under-supported across the grain, was cupping now that it was acclimating to a different climate.
This was my first time making a table of this size, so I was underprepared for how much the top was “moving”. I offered to remake, paying closer attention to the undersides (this time I used steel “C” channeling along the underside). Unfortunately, after completion but before freighting it, the designer announced she didn’t like the board layout and how it would interact with the leaves. So, with some bitterness, I stored this table top away in my shop.
And… I made another. A third. These were 98”x40” x 1-3/4” solid white oak table tops (without the leaves), mind you—so not cheap. This time, nearly two years later, upon arrival of the third top at the residence nearly 2,000 miles away, the interior designer decided she just didn’t like it anymore.
She requested a refund via the third party we were working through—a third party, I will add, who took all the credit for the table’s creation in the first place, and who took the designer’s side (the designers are their clients after all). I didn’t bend to this request. After some rather sarcastic and unprofessional remarks made by this third party via email, I cut ties. Overall it was quite a nasty experience.
In the end though, I salvaged that second table top and made this one here. I added some cross grain “breadboard” ends to it to keep it from “moving”, and designed the profile of the top to have curved sides and fully rounded edges. While I no longer speak with, nor get work from that third party, I do take some pride in this top being salvaged from a bad experience, and made even better at that.
Sometimes we don’t end up with wins and just have to eat costs. But, other times we do. And I’m thankful this time.
DETAILS:
- 56” L x 36” W x 1-3/4”
- Finished with 5% white