Geraamte
Console table
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In brief
Dimensions
90 (h) x 90 (w) x 32 (d) cmMaterials
Elm & MapleFeatures
- Hanging shelf
- Wedged through-tenon joinery
- Elaborate frame design
- Signature triplet sticks
Description
Geraamte is a console table designed to adorn the wall of a modern living room or a hallway. Its neat and airy frame design offers a distinctively minimalist sense and is so characteristic that we decided to simply call it like it is: geraamte is Dutch for frame.
The ‘hanging’ shelf is probably the most characteristic feature of Geraamte and is the ideal storage place for an heirloom vase or your favorite brandy. The thick narrow maple top shelf, adorned with the protruding peaks of the hanging shelf, offers additional space to showcase vases, glasses, bottles, and other paraphernalia.
frame_inspectAnatomy
expand_circle_downAs the name suggests, Geraamte is all about frame construction. The outer frame consists of four peaked elm legs joined to one another by elm rails. For additional strength and design purposes, the rails are on their turn connected to one another by yet another set of elm components; one might call them ‘parallel legs’ or ‘vertical rails’.
A narrow, thick board of maple rests on the outer frame, offering space for storage, but also serving a constructional purpose: this is where the ‘hanging shelf’, made of the same maple as the top shelf, ‘hangs’ on. The handshaped peaked legs of the hanging shelf protrude through the top shelf and are kept in place with wedges. This is for both constructional and design purposes.
Geraamte is a celebration of mortise and tenon joinery and in particular its wedged through-tenon variant. All frame components and even the ‘hanging’ shelf are attached to one another with this joint type, using maple wedges.
Espenaer’s signature triplet sticks have settled themselves in the mid-section of the piece. They are connected to the frame with regular (blind) mortise and tenon joinery.
carpenterCrafting history
expand_circle_downGeraamte is exclusively crafted by hand using traditional hand tools and techniques. The thin bars of the frame were all cut from a single 50mm thick board of sustainably sourced elm with a combination of Japanese and Western-style saws and subsequently planed to the right dimensions with Western-style hand planes. The top shelf and the ‘hanging’ shelf were cut from a board of sustainably sourced maple and underwent a similar treatment.
The mortise and (wedged through-)tenon joints are a tribute to the simple elegance of artisanal woodworking and were all hand-cut with a fine Western-style dovetail saw, a ryoba saw, and a set of Western-style bench chisels. The wedges to fit in the tenons were cut from the same maple board as the shelves.
The round peaks on the legs and the rails were shaped by hand using a combination of hand planes, files, scrapers, and sanding paper.
The side table was smoothed with finely tuned scrapers and finished with three layers of pure tung oil.
