As we got a better sense for the aesthetics of the renovation – clean, bright lines with lots of sunlight and an elegant simplicity – it became clear that maple would be the right decision. A live-edge maple slab was the perfect piece for this project. With tones ranging from pale, creamy whites to reddish browns, maple fit the feel of the new space to a tee. The grain in a maple slab swirls fluidly, creating unique eye-catching patterns and the prized, light-bending effects known as figure. No two slabs are exactly alike and, as you can see, this unique maple tabletop is like a piece of artwork. That’s what you get with a full live edge slab – a functional piece of art. The pale tans and golden ripples of this particular slab complement the color palette of the room spectacularly.

The bases that our clients chose for this table are a style we love to use on live-edge tables, because they have clean, sweeping lines that offer something of a contemporary contrast to the burliness of large slabs while also echoing nature’s tendency away from straight lines. We make the curved legs by resawing lumber – that is, cutting parallel to the face of boards – into thin, flexible strips that we laminate to each other and bend to a form in our workshop. By the time the laminating process is complete, we’ve got rock-solid legs that often have subtle variations in color – just like the tabletop above them.