William Morris Table Repost - Text Intro
 

Google William Morris 1834-96 and the results you will get are all wallpaper
and fabrics, still being made and still for sale. He was a great decorator
but he was also much more than that, an artist, poet, novelist,
entrepreneur, all round designer, craftsman, printer-publisher, politician
and visionary. His vision was of a new society in which manufacturing was
returned to the craft workshop, where people found joy in making things of
beauty, utility and quality. Cities and factories would be demolished as
people returned to their rural communities where they would rediscover
brotherhood, mutual endeavour and self reliance. It was a vision based on a
romantic view of the medieval economy - craftsmanship, guilds, self
governing small towns and common ownership. His furniture, like the
paintings of his friend Burne-Jones is an imagined and idealised
medievalism. Furniture to be craftsman made, not mass produced, solid,
honest and decorated with paint or with a few rustic motifs.

I have been drawing some plans to make a William Morris table taken from
photographs of a surviving piece. I haven't seen the piece so I can't be
totally certain that I have the overall dimensions correct but I am pretty
sure I have it close. I suppose it is possible that the original is 30"
high - a table you could sit at, but that would make the top 3" thick. I
have drawn it 18" high with a 2" thick top 36" in diameter which I think is
very likely how it is. A table for my house needs to be smaller still so I
will probably scale it down further and make it 24" diameter when I come to
build it. It appears to be made of clear knot free deal.

Tim W