Questionable design choice - or am I a curmudgeon?

smorgasbord

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OK, the answer may be both.

Foureyes Furniture just posted this video:


Here's the sketch of the design:
Screenshot 2025-04-10 at 7.15.42 PM.png

The catch is that the top is a single wide slab of walnut. OK, with an epoxy river because, well, trendy. At 9:18 in the video, he says "the perimeter of the base will exactly match the perimeter of the top." He even goes to the process of trimming the top with a flush router bit with the bearing against the leg structure.

At that point, my wood movement hairs are standing up at the back of my neck. This is a 40" wide walnut slab after all.

At 20:02 into the video, he realizes this and so cuts a rabbet in the top of the leg structure to try to hide the effects of wood movement in the top causing misalignment with the leg structure. Ugh.

So, now he'll have a top that doesn't "exactly match" the base - but only on the two long edges, it'll match perfectly along the short edges.

This just seems like a bad design choice. Why make a modified Parsons Table only to have to add a detail to hide inevitable wood movement? The choice of a solid wood slab and Parsons table design just don't go hand in hand. Even worse than backwards dovetails, IMO.
 
I've gotta admit my first thought was nope, don't like that idea, but after watching the video and the beautiful clean lines at the end, I think its quite a simple but striking design.

I like it!
 
I've gotta admit my first thought was nope, don't like that idea, but after watching the video and the beautiful clean lines at the end, I think its quite a simple but striking design.

I like it!
I'll have to admit that I do like it. ;)
 
Just to be clear, it's not that I don't like the design, it's that I don't think it's appropriate for a solid wood top that'll change size in one dimension over time.

What will a corner look like after the table goes from Whittier, California to dry Las Vegas? One side will be perfectly flush, the other will be recessed maybe ⅛" or more? If that happens, it won't look so good there.
 
This brings back memories. I built a table for our family room and used a butcher block from IKEA as the top. I wanted to do a Parsons-style table, but my better (and smarter) better half wanted the top to extend past the legs and base. So I figured in a 40mm overhang for the sides and ends. But I fouled it up and the top ending up exactly matching the base. At least at first. Then it shrank in width (not length, just as @smorgasbord said) and exposed the tops of the legs. Drove me crazy. Rather than rebuild the base, we bought a piece of granite for the top.
 
Also interesting is the price: $18,000.
Seeing that Mira Nakashima has Conoid dining tables starting at $25,500 (and maybe other base designs for less), makes me wonder about what the rich end up buying.
 
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