At Loewen Design Studios we build tables from solid wood.
We use multiple boards to construct the tables; each plank runs the full length of the table, and they are glued next to each other to span the width of the table. We do this in 2 different ways, for 2 different reasons. The first is our regular tables with multiple planks, and the second is our bookmatch tops.
We’ll get into more detail about the bookmatch tops specifically in another blog entry, for now let's say they’re fairly similar, but with only 2 planks that match each other.
Our tables are made of boards glued together to create a large panel of wood, as opposed to just a single slice of wood. While the single slab table option provides a lot of interesting character to the table top, there are many reasons why we prefer to build table tops from multiple planks.
So why do we use multiple boards to build your wood tabletop?
Reason 1 - It makes your table stronger.
Making tables from multiple planks is stronger. The rings of the tree want to straighten as they dry, so the piece of wood wants to bend according to the grain. The round tree grain wants to be flat, so the flat table ends up round. Sort of a square peg round hole situation. There are 2 ways around this,. One is to use the perfect center slice of the tree. Then the grain is nearly perfectly vertical, and doesn’t want to change its shape. The other way is to take multiple pieces to cut the grain, have shorter pieces where the force isn’t as strong, and then they can balance themselves back and forth for the entire table to stay straighter for longer. This is the method we use, again for a good reason.
Reason 2 - Its better for the trees.
Making tables from multiple planks is better for the trees. We can use more of the tree, because when we use smaller pieces we aren’t limited to only using the center slab of the tree,. We can use a lot more of it which means less tree waste and more responsible use of our natural resources.
Reason 3 - It makes your table top more consistent.
Trees are, oddly enough, natural things. They grow as they please, or as the sun tells them to, not always perfectly straight or perfectly round. They’re a little more like a 4 year old’s drawing than sometimes we might hope. Using smaller planks means we can choose only the parts that look great, making you a more consistent table top. This is how we can make many tops that will all look similar to the ones in our photos.
