Rectangular Woven Base Dining Table with Six Chairs in Cane and Mahogany

A solid timber top on a woven rattan base, so the weight is where it needs to be and the weave is out of the way of knees and shoes. Supplied with six matching chairs, woven in the same workshop in the same week, which is the only way a set genuinely matches.

Every piece here is woven by hand, which is not a marketing line but a description of the only way it can be done. Rattan cannot be machine woven around a curve, so a chair back is somebody sitting with a former and a bundle of soaked cane for most of a day. The consequence is that no two pieces are identical, that the binding at the joints varies slightly, and that a weave that is perfectly regular is usually a sign of extruded plastic rather than good workmanship.

Specification

• Dimensions: table rectangular, 1800 by 900mm by 760mm high, chairs 480mm wide by 560mm deep
• Seat or working height: table 760mm, chair seat 460mm
• Frame: steam bent rattan pole, or solid teak or mahogany where the material says so
• Weave: hand woven, close weave on the chair backs and open weave on the table base
• Finish: a solid mahogany frame with hand woven cane webbing, the combination used on Regency chairs and still the best
• Load rating: chairs tested to 120kg to EN 12520, table top to 60kg
• Indoor or outdoor: Indoors, or a covered veranda or conservatory that stays dry. Natural rattan is not garden furniture and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you a chair that will go grey, swell, split and unravel inside two seasons. If you want rattan outdoors you want woven polyethylene, which is a good product honestly described and something we do not sell.
• Assembly: Chairs arrive assembled, the table arrives with its legs off. Allow about half an hour for the whole set with the spanner in the box.
• Weight: approximately 81.7 kilograms for the set
• Seats: 6 comfortably
• Table top: solid timber, 25mm
• Chair stacking: not stackable, these are woven backs
• Cushions: seat pads supplied in your chosen fabric, covers removable
• Saving against buying the table and chairs separately: about 6 per cent
• Delivered in one consignment, two person delivery to the room

What you get

• One rectangular woven base dining table
• Six dining chairs, assembled
• Six seat pads with removable covers
• Felt pads for every leg and a spare set
• A spanner for the table legs and a care card

Care

Dust it with a soft brush rather than a cloth, because a cloth skates over the weave and a brush gets into it. Two or three times a year wipe it over with a barely damp cloth and let it dry away from a radiator. Rattan does not like being dry any more than it likes being wet, so a piece that lives next to a radiator or in a room with the heating on all winter will benefit from a light mist of water once a month, which sounds like an old wives' tale and is the single most useful thing anyone will tell you about it. If a strand lifts, do not pull it. Damp it, press it back and hold it with masking tape overnight.

Where it works

This is the piece people mean by coastal: pale, woven and light enough to move with one hand. It sits happily against white or off white walls and against the greens and warm neutrals that have replaced grey in most houses. In a room with a lot of hard surfaces it does the job that a rug does, which is to take the edge off the echo.