Milled Hardwoods

Custom Table In Walnut

Ultimately, the material that we work with is the anchor for any Cannon Hill project. On the building side, the worst thing you can do is to fight the material, to try and make it do things it doesn’t want to: the wood will always win, in the end. On the design side, we need to understand what our client wants from the piece, and what sort of material will best deliver it. For this table, we pulled some of the most spectacular milled walnut you’re likely to encounter.

Mahogany Desk and Bookcase in Cambridge

This desk and bookcase are both built from mahogany, the former in 8/4 material and the latter in 4/4. Our distributor in New Hampshire has a wide range of wood species in stock, and we hand-select every board for every piece we build. Cannon Hill’s quality control process involves various, regular checks to make sure that all the furniture that leaves our shop meets our exacting standards of aesthetic and functional quality. One of the first of these checks is a visual examination to ensure consistency of color and tone.

Joinery-leg Oak Coffee Table

You may have seen coffee tables, or even dining tables, like this one before — with functional and attractive joinery at the corners and a low, sturdy stance. As a matter of fact, the starting point for our design was a handful of other tables that our clients brought to us. They had seen commercially available coffee tables that they liked aesthetically, but they knew they wanted better quality for their home.

Walnut Dining Table with Angular Legs

Our client on this project got in touch with us because he was moving into a new condo in Brookline, and he wanted a new dining table to fit — and set — the tone of the space. The building is one of those beautiful buildings with intricate penny tiles and oak paneling in the halls; our client wanted a piece that would feel appropriate to his more contemporary styling and decor. It can be a tricky thing to update the interior of a unit in a way that doesn’t jar visitors as they step in from the hallway. Our client pulled it off, and we’re happy and proud to be a part of the process.

Custom Oak Kitchen Table

When our client on this project approached us, she started with a few crucial pieces of information: first, that this table was going into a beach house, and that she wanted to keep that beachy feel; second, that she was after clean, unfussy lines; and third, that there would be no other wood in the kitchen that we would need to try and coordinate with. It’s great when clients come to us with important context for the table, because we can incorporate all these considerations from the very start of the build.

Custom Walnut Kitchen Table

A table for a built-in breakfast nook like this one is a fantastic, if perhaps surprising, candidate for a custom table. Most of the projects that we take on here at Cannon Hill are for furniture that’s intended as a showpiece of sorts: the dining table that will act as the center of gravity for a dinner party, or a stunning coffee table to set the tone in a living room. A kitchen table is typically more strictly utilitarian than those pieces but, in fact, that’s exactly why it makes so much sense as a custom piece.

Round Kitchen Table in Oak with Angular Base

We build a wide variety of bases here at Cannon Hill in all sorts of designs and from all sorts of materials. This “genre” of single base is one of our favorites and one that’s sure to be an eye-catcher. Whereas some bases are meant to invoke heft and substance, these suggest elegance, refinement, and a sort of almost origamic airiness. A product of extensive testing and design evolution, these bases never fail to impress. The tapers and angles found throughout enhance the sense that light is flowing around and through the base.

Contemporary Walnut Dining Table

As custom furniture makers, our days are spent in two main phases, design and build. Every piece that leaves Cannon Hill’s workshop is the result of close design collaboration between our clients and us. I like to say that we aim for our clients to be the gas pedal in this collaboration, driving aesthetic choices and overall purpose, while we act largely as the brake.