Another recent commission that has been huge fun was this set of sloping shelves for a house in North Carlton. The client wanted a statement piece to store books at the end of their dining room, which was a later addition to the original medieval hall house. The dining room has a gradually sloping ceiling, which I suggested we could run the top shelf parallel to, and mirror with the second shelf down, which would then be mirrored on the third shelf, and so on. The shelves are supported by a pair of central pillars that not only hold the weight, but act as a central stop to gather the books as gravity pulls them down the shelves.

The shelves have brackets rebated into the back of them, which hold them on the wall and give them the appearance of floating. I used English oak, again grown in Lincolnshire, for this commission which had some lovely character grain, and ended up a warm honey colour when finished with natural ‘hardwax oil’.

The same clients commissioned me to design and make a computer desk to fit in their study, which had to be large enough to seat two people, and still allow access to the shelves around, so I designed it to have large curved corners on the front face. This made for some tricky construction as I had to steam bend the front rails, and shape the legs to fit the curved form.

The clients recently contacted me to say they were pleased with the pieces, which is always a great end to a job.