Not the first piece of furniture I've made so far but one of the most satisfying
A table with a natural wood top had always been something I wanted.
Looking at various readily-available models in furniture stores and online made me realize that, while the wooden tops available were sometimes really great, unfortunately the legs were mostly made out of metal profiles available at any local hardware store and looked like even I could weld them together.
As is customary with serial products, the main point - in this case the natural wood top - gets all the focus at the expense of economy-orientation in other areas. It's understandable, just not tolerable to me.
So I figured I'd be able to make a table with a natural wood top and metal legs that looked better than what was commercially available.
A wooden top wasn't the only option, though. Since I also like glass-top tables I noticed something which I made into my ground rule for designing tables: If you want a catchy table top, the legs must look simplistic. If you have a simple glass top, you get to play with the legs more. Why is that? The way I see it, a table is made of these two main design elements. Trying to draw attention to both at the same time seems not to work very well, they're clashing.
Concentrating on one elaborate element while keeping the other simple draws more attention to the focus element.
So, a few leg concepts went to archive for later use on a glass-top table.
A small jury helped to find the nicest design. The top and bottom plates were laser cut while the two legs are made of standard rectangular profiles. In order to keep the center of gravity as low as possible I designed the top support plate in an X-shape, among a few other tricks.
While the powder coating didn't come out in exactly the hue I wished for, I'm still very pleased about the result. It's an amazingly robust, very low center of gravity and very safe table.
The simple and strong legs transmit a feeling of robustness while leaving quite a lot of legroom; the wooden top plate creates a warm and natural atmosphere. A lovely place to share a meal with friends.
The design seems to have caught on, finding a couple of followers.
