Coffee Table
"the cow"

Size: 54" long X 40" wide X 19" high
Look at this from either end and you just might see the face of a cow.  Some people don't, it's O.K.  It was never intended to be a cow anyway.  Moving on......The top is a pair of book-matched maple burl slabs joined along their natural edge to a piece of curly cherry which is scribed to fill the gap between the two slabs.  All three pieces are tied together with two curly maple butterfly keys.  They are kept flat by a hefty, yet decorative, dovetail spline which spans the full width.  The burl slabs air dried for three years after sawing.  The base is made of cherry.  Hand chiseled and hand cut mortise and tenon joinery is utilized throughout the piece.  The joint that connects the legs to the rails is pegged with two walnut treenails.  All other thru-tenons are wedged with walnut.  Decorative birch bark diamonds are recessed one half inch and framed with a quarter-round twig.  It is finished with 6 or 7 hand rubbed coats of tung oil.

The design concept came from marrying the west coast arts-and-crafts style of Greene and Greene with the live edge slabs reminiscent of George Nakashima.  Another astute architect thought this if William West Durant had ever met Charles Sumner Greene that this is the coffee table they would have collaborated on.