A customer of ours, with whom we have an excellent relationship, wanted to source some walnut that was going to be made into a bespoke reception desk. This may seem like a fairly straightforward request – however, they wanted the desk to be made of European Walnut. This is unusual because the vast majority of walnut used in the UK is American Walnut.
The European variety of this timber is in low demand and even lower supply, which made it trickier to source, as it is a rare species in our domestic market. However, the customer, who was working closely with an architect, had a clear vision in mind of how they wanted the desk to look. What’s more, the timber would have to be carefully selected due to the demanding nature of the finish that would be applied to the desk.
The architect wanted to make the most of the natural curvature of the walnut logs, and so requested the joiners to joint the desk along the curve as opposed to the traditional square edge jointing method.
Due to the special design of the desk, the architect was keen to select through the boards with the joiner and ourselves to select their desired pieces. We subsequently sent the material to the joinery manufacturer who machined and joined the pieces using templates to mirror the curves.
The result is a stunning bespoke reception desk that now sits in a new office in Cambridgeshire. It is a perfect example of what can happen when the right craftsman can find the right timber – when you work with Quercus, you will always have the latter.