TEA, bookshelf and drawers.

I built a pair of identical bookshelves as Christmas present for my two sons. I design it as usual: as simple as I could. The drawers have no handles but the oversized fronts, the shelves are hold in position by glass (very stable in longitudinal direction). I got an old piece of wood: it was a piece of a balk of an old traditional house. It measured about 200 cm x 20 cm x 20 cm and, as most of the structural wood in old traditional houses, was a TEA timber. TEA is the local name of special kind of pine, endemic in the Canary Islands. It has the particullarity to sproud out after a fire. I bought the wood to an old carpenter that retired. He told me that the has been for about 40 years in his workshop. So I think that the wood could be cut 150 or 200 years ago. I decided to keep it for a very special project. And I find a present for my sons was special enough. I get thin timbers of it and ordered it as drawers fronts. I find the result was interesting. The rest of the furniture is made in a african wood we call “aloma” with a beautiful golden colour. I decided to outstand the fences as a kind of rehabilitation job.

-- Alejandro Moreno, CANARY ISLANDS