The Oak at the House
A dining table made from a fallen family oak
The ask
My closest friend from school lost his mother in March. The week of the funeral, a storm brought down the old oak behind the farmhouse kitchen in Kent where she cooked for fifty years. He has two small children and a kitchen with no table. I'd like the tree to go with him. Around $12,000.
The gift
A furniture workshop in southeast London sends two sawyers to mill the fallen oak into boards, and kiln-dries them over several weeks. From those boards the workshop designs and builds a dining table for eight in its own studio. We add a short written record of the tree, with the date it was milled. The card is closed with a blind-embossed seal.
Why it's extraordinary
The oak stood behind the kitchen where his mother cooked for him. Milled within weeks of falling, it becomes the table his own children eat at.
The moment
The table stands in his kitchen, and the family sits down to dinner at it every evening.
A curator replies within one business day.
