Tom And Ann Blacks Carver chairs made in English Dark Ash

" Black is the colour …. "

The phone rang, it always rings when I am putting glue on something tender and irreplaceable. “My name is Ann Black, I am looking for a dining table, we are moving into a new “Barn Conversion”  and we have seen your website and wondered if you could help. “I will try….. “. “We want a centre piece, something right in the middle of a huge wooden beamed, stone flagged, brick built room about forty feet high. We want something modern because the building is brand new but also uses old natural materials. Oh, and the kids have got to be able to chuck their satchels on it and not worry too much about it.”

That is how it began, thats how they all begin, I met Ann and her husband Tom and talked and got on and then there were chairs. “Oh "Love Chairs," can we have them as side chairs down the table, four pairs and a really nice pair of carver chairs at either end?" I love working with people like this, making special furniture needs special clients, people who have courage and vision. I did two lots of drawings and brought up samples of different timbers. And so “The Mother Of All Tables” was born. I searched for two months and drove all over the country to find Dark Ash that was over fourteen feet long and four inches thick .Then we got to making, to turning the ideas into something real, this is where Daren Millman and Si Smith then turned it into something special.

I say special and it sounds rather glib, just moving the table top around needed four strong hearties. The chairs were also very, very slow to appear,  Ann wanted them in time for a party in the summer. I had hoped we could have them done but as the time got nearer it became obvious that we could not do it in time. And I didn't tell her, WOW that was a silly mistake but I apologized and  when finally the furniture arrived it was better, more sexy, more amusing than ever they had imagined. And that I hope is for ever.