Making magic for Michelle McKay
When Michelle and Frankie asked Jez if he would be able to make them a dining table, he wasn't sure he was going to be able to make time to do it. In fact, he initially said no, for fear of letting her down. After all, we were busy with a new baby and Jez is a perfectionist who didn't want to commit to a project if he couldn't make it to his high standards.
Michelle and Frankie even got in touch with another furniture maker but his lead time was so long that Jez decided he needed to jump in and get it done for them!
He hand selected the timber, which came from a decommissioned timber mill in NSW, and set to making their table.
Jez was thrilled with the finished product, he has carefully considered all the little details - the taper of the leg, the colour of the resin filling the knots in the wood, the way the joins were designed. Nothing was left to chance.
When it came to the day of delivery, however, he felt nervous. He knew he had made a beautiful table - but would they love it? These are our dear friends, so would they be honest if they weren't completely happy?
Michelle was able to totally allay his fears, when she immediately commissioned another piece - a desk for her studio - and Jez finally felt that he had really met their brief.
We are so honoured to be making forever items for people's homes.
Scroll down to have a look at Michelle's full testimonial (she's a natural with words, as you'll see).
Visit her website here and hop over to her Instagram to see more of her stunning work.
'We ordered a custom dining room table from All Folk last year. We’d never ordered custom made furniture before so I was nervous, but the table we owned previously hadn’t adapted well to our growing family and young children, and we knew it was time to invest in something better.
I figured a table is a piece of furniture we use every single day, constantly - for meals, card games, craft projects, school work… so it needed to be strong, but also beautiful. I wanted it to be the last table we’d ever buy. I described to Jez what we were imagining, and he came to our house to see our space to help with measurements.
Anyone who’s met either Jez or Katie knows they’re real gems if people; they made the process so easy. The day they delivered the table I was flawed by how perfect it was. No matter how much you trust a business, there’s always that little worry that it’s not going to be quite what you had in your head, but this table is everything I could have hoped for and more.
You get so used to the regular type of furniture you see in stores, so nothing really prepares you for the impact of seeing something made so artfully, and with so much love, made slow with lifelong use in mind.
To this day I run my hands over the table top while I have my morning coffee. It’s a simple table, but also such a statement piece in our home. It gets climbed all over by our kids, things get spilt on it; we aren’t precious with it because we don’t need to be - it’s been built for this.
I was so stoked with how well Jez realised my vision that I commissioned him again almost immediately to make me a desk for my studio office. I could go on all day about that gorgeous thing, it’s an actual functional work of art.
All Folk will make all our custom furniture now. Nothing else compares, and I’ve come to realise there’s just no point in settling when you can buy it once and be done for life. Jez and Katie, thank you. You’re the real deal. x'
- Michelle