A couple of days ago, from under four feet of snow appeared this, our outdoor dining table. The top is one massive slab of oak that my wife got for next to nothing ten years ago, while they were clearing up at our local timber yard (est. 1660 with a water-driven sawmill next to a waterfall). Last year I built it a new base to go with the bench. The bench I made years ago; it has been a big success, insofar as a bench can be successful. Everything is very solid, table and bench function well together and I like the way they look — they fulfill Vitruvius’s criteria of firmitatis utilitatis venustatis, translated in 1624 by Henry Wotton into a maxim known to all architects, ‘”Well building hath three conditions: firmness, commodity and delight”.
That’s not a rat in the foreground; it’s Alex, our fourteen-year-old Yorkshire terrier — in dog years, he’s well over five-hundred-years old.
A Bad Guide 