Andy wanted to create the writing surface out of two different boards, by sawing or ‘ripping’ one wide board into two pieces and inserting another piece, from a different part of the tree, into the middle. ‘This way we can reverse the direction of the grain in the middle piece. When moisture is taken up by this top surface as a whole, the outside sections will want to cup or curve in one direction and the middle piece will want to curve in the other direction. To a large extent, they’ll cancel each other out.’ Andy said.

There was one obvious candidate for the one-inch thick board that would be ripped down the middle. At the sides of this board, the wood was creamy and pale with arrow-straight, parallel lines of grain. As there was some coloration in the middle of the wood – a gentle fade from creamy-white through camel to cappuccino – Andy wanted to find a centre piece that picked up that change, so that the hue would flow from light to dark to light again across the whole writing surface. He also wanted to find the piece of timber with the most interesting ‘figure’.