Imagine losing your house and contents to a fire. Just devastating. But imagine discovering that your shed survived and with it the red gum slabs and posts you’d collected from fallen trees on your property years before. Suddenly there’s something positive. An opportunity.
This happened to my clients and this very special table will forever connect them to their past.
Just about everyone in Australia knows someone impacted by bushfire. The havoc they can wreak is real. So, when you come across a story with a positive element attached, it’s one well worth sharing.
The 2019-2020 bush fire season was massive. A combination of hot weather and drought, combined with high winds saw large portions of the east coast on fire. Corryong NSW wasn’t spared the carnage and saw loss of homes.
I first met my clients, local dairy farmers, a few years after they survived a bushfire that destroyed their home and contents. There was a lot of sadness at that time. They lost a lot, but not quite everything. A few years earlier they had milled red gum slabs and posts from fallen trees around their property. They stored them in their shed, in just the right way throughout the drying process.
Trust me, this is an art in itself. And somehow, the shed had been spared the fire. The wood was perfectly intact.
After a few calls and messages, they headed my way with a Ute full of red gum pieces ready to turn into a custom design.
Then the process was over to me. I started with re-milling all the pieces into usable stock – cutting, sanding, filling. And then I got to build. What a joy that was. I created a live edge table around two metres long with a traditional farmhouse style ‘X’ based frame.
It remains one of my favourite builds to this day and was clearly a success. They recently rocked up with more timber to make a second one for their in-laws.
Not only are these tables beautiful, but they give an important nod to the past. A reminder of survival, and a space to create new memories.