When a friend asks you to design and build a coffee table, it takes the client relationship up a notch because the stakes are always higher when friends or family become customers. But when this customer is someone as easy-going, design savvy and open-minded when it comes to the design/build process, as Carrie, it reminds you that these are the best clients ever.

This coffee table is made of thick reclaimed fir beams that have been cured and finished in the Japanese technique of burning the wood, "shou-sugi-ban.” Steel legs and a painted red accent of the underbelly of the table finish off this beauty.