Custom Walnut and Wormy Maple Coffee Table with Handles
A client in New York asked us for a custom walnut coffee table that could do more than one job. Most of the time it would sit in his apartment as a coffee table. When people came over, it would become a seat. Turned on its side, it would work as a shelf or display box. He also wanted handles on it so it could be carried when it needed to move.
The idea behind it was an upscale version of the apple box, the plain wooden crate you see on every photo shoot and film set. Apple boxes are useful and nobody looks at them twice; we wanted people to notice this apple box.
This one is walnut with a band of wormy maple running through the middle, and the corners are joined with box joints, also called finger joints. Each finger is half an inch. Cutting joints that size across a box this big meant building a router jig for the job first.
The sides are 23 by 16 inches and the ends are 12 by 16 inches, so there was no shortcut to getting every finger to line up around all four corners. The jig was the fiddly part, and it paid for itself on the first clean corner. The handles are cut into the end panels, sized so they're easy to grab without sticking out past the box.
The result works as a coffee table, a seat, or a shelf, depending on the day. If you have a piece in mind that has to do more than one thing, or one you can't find anywhere else, reach out. Custom orders are what we do, and the contacting us is the easiest place to start.
