Crafting a custom six-metre oak dining table for a rural retreat

It’s a design perfectly at home in this dining room, but it took lots of planning to get here. With custom components, intricate detailing and carefully engineered moving parts, the table first came to life on paper in the Bespoke Timber Design workshop. Here, months of collaborative planning detailed exactly how the table would be built, how it would expand and fold away, and how it would be transported and assembled in its Warkworth home.

“The client needed a table that could comfortably sit her family day-to-day, but also be extended for entertaining larger gatherings,” says Bespoke Timber Design’s Dylan McKay. After months of discussions and ensuring every detail was just right, Dylan’s team started measuring, cutting, sanding and experimenting with the moving parts. 

The scale alone was a challenge. Even in its compact form, the table measures four metres. From there, it opens from the centre to reach six metres, and the componentry needed for the table to extend to this length wasn’t available off the shelf. “There was nothing we could just buy and use,” says Dylan. “We had to design the table as well as all the hardware and moving components and make all of that in-house.”

To achieve the seamless two-metre extension, the team engineered custom sliding mechanisms, purpose-built to support the significant weight of solid oak. Each two-metre section weighs close to 150 kilograms, requiring robust yet refined hardware that would operate smoothly without compromising the aesthetic. “There was a lot of trial and error creating the custom hardware.”

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Inside the workshop, the project became a coordinated team effort. Dylan produced detailed workshop drawings before three craftspeople worked simultaneously on different components. One focused on constructing the legs and base, while others assembled the tabletop panels. “The grain was made up in separate panels and then all joined together to create the pattern in the top,” Dylan explains.

Once each component was complete, the table was fully assembled in the workshop to test its operation. Even in this industrial space, the table appeared grand in its place: “It’s such a massive table that it actually made our workshop look quite small.”

After final sanding, the table was sent to be coated in a deep Mirotone wood stain. A dark tone colour-matched to complement other timber elements within the home, it brings out the depth of the oak’s natural grain. 

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Reassembled in the Pukekohe workshop one last time, the client visited to see the finished piece before the table was disassembled again, each piece carefully packaged to be transported.

Transporting and installing the dining table was no easy feat, either. Given its weight and size, the table was transported in sections and assembled in place. 

For Dylan and his team, projects like this are what define their practice: precision craftsmanship transforming ambitious briefs into statement pieces and furniture worthy of heirloom status. 

“We enjoy creating bespoke pieces and challenging projects,” he says. “It takes outside-the-box thinking to make everything work. Most of our clients either have an image in their head that they want us to build, or we’re helping design that piece for them. It’s a very collaborative process.”

If you’re inspired by projects like this, ArchiPro makes it easy to explore New Zealand makers who specialise in custom furniture and architectural joinery. Browse completed homes to see how statement pieces define a space, discover skilled craftspeople, or start a project board to collect ideas for your own build or renovation. Creating a home with furniture designed specifically for the way you live should feel seamless. ArchiPro is here to help you bring those ideas to life.