Journal

Oil, Hardwax, or Lacquer: Choosing the Finish for a Solid Wood Dining Table

The species of wood decides what the table is made of. The finish decides what it is like to live with. Specifying a solid wood dining table usually begins with the species — oak, walnut, ash — and...

Dining Chair Upholstery: Bouclé, Linen, Leather — What Lasts at the Table

A dining chair is sat on more often than any other seat in the house, and spilled on more than any other. The fabric has to be chosen for that, not for the showroom. Upholstery is the part of a di...

How a Stone Dining Table Arrives: Weight, Access, Installation

A stone table is designed for the room it will stand in. It is delivered through every doorway, stair, and corner that comes before it. The conversation about a stone dining table usually ends at ...

The Armchair at the Head of the Table: When and How

A head chair is not a bigger chair. It is the one seat in the room that has to look intended. On a long dining table, the two end seats are the first thing the eye reads and the last thing most sp...

Table Edge Profiles: What the Edge Does That the Top Cannot

The tabletop is what the eye sees. The edge is what the hand, the forearm, and the first accidental knock actually meet. Dining table specification spends its time on material, shape, and size, the...

Table Height and Seat Height: Getting the Proportions Right

A dining table and its chairs are measured separately and used together. The comfort lives in the gap between them. Most dining tables are specified by length and most chairs by style. Neither numb...

Trestle vs Pedestal vs Leg Base: How Table Base Construction Affects Everything

The top is what people photograph. The base decides where they sit, how they move, and whether the table is still standing straight in thirty years. Dining table specification conversations start w...

The Dining Table as Heirloom: How to Buy Once and Keep Forever

An heirloom isn't a table that happens to survive. It's a table specified, from the first decision, to be worth surviving. "Buy once, keep forever" gets said often and specified rarely. A table th...

Emperador Dark: The Most Versatile Dark Stone

Dark stone gets treated as a niche, dramatic choice. Emperador Dark is the exception — dark enough to anchor a room, warm enough to belong in almost any palette. Dark stone specification tends to d...

What a Dining Table Sounds Like — Acoustics in the Dining Room

A beautiful dining room that's exhausting to talk in has a specification problem, not an atmosphere problem. Dining rooms are, by construction, some of the most acoustically difficult rooms in a h...