Large English Elm Live Edge Round Coffee Table

A large coffee table made from a very old, very large English elm tree. They don't often get to be this large. There will never be another table like this ever.

A tree surgeon friend rang me 7 years ago saying he had a present for me. He turned up at my small workshop with the back of the car lower than the front. As soon as he opened the boot i saw why. There was a huge cut slice from the biggest elm tree i have ever seen. i stacked it up with lots of other slabs i had. it spent 5-6 years drying out and becoming workable. Since then i have spent time on and off flattening and shaping the slab to become the beautiful piece of wood it is today. The first time i saw the grain emerge from the chainsaw rough cut faces was a wonderful moment. I then spent more hours than i like to admit deciding on the base for it. I went through a stone phase, a metal phase and finally stopped thinking about it and grabbed some old oak i had waiting for just such an occasion. I went onwards with a loose idea of what i wanted to create. I cut, carved and sculpted the base into a branches, trunk and roots style. Which i think came out pretty good.

The top has a wonderful deep brown in the centre and changes to a beautiful grain pattern to a lighter brown in the sapwood around the edge. It has been finished with danish oil and with regular application (or when it looks a little dry) it will look the same as today in 20 years or more.