Matthiessen Console
Some furniture is drawn, and some is discovered. The Matthiessen console was discovered. It began as the Matthiessen Cot — a campaign coffee table on a folding X-frame, low to the floor — and one day, looking hard at its legs, we saw that another piece was already there in the bones of it. It wanted only one change to come out: shorten the stadium-shaped stretcher, and the whole frame stands taller, up to console height. Nothing else was touched. On the strength of a single altered dimension, the coffee table had become a console.
The frame is otherwise the cot's exactly — the same X of two crossed parts, meeting at the center and joined there by metal cylinders, the joint the coffee table folded on. The cylinders come in satin brushed stainless or lacquered brass, and along a longer console the X repeats down the length, an even rhythm of crossings beneath the top.
The top is held the campaign way, by leather rather than by screws. English bridle straps pass over the frame and draw the top down to it — the same belts that once cinched the cot's slings, put now to holding a top. They come in black, dark chocolate, Havana, saddle, cognac, and coach; and the top itself is yours in wood or in glass, the one showing the strapping at its edges, the other the whole frame beneath.
It is made in the full range of twenty-six woods, from bleached white oak to ebonized walnut, in lengths from seventy-two to a hundred and eight inches, and to custom dimensions besides. Like the cot, it still breaks down flat — the top unstraps, the frame folds on its cylinders — though no client, to date, has felt the need. It keeps the capacity the way good luggage keeps a second handle: available, and rarely called upon. The original still stands low, as the Matthiessen Cot.
Dimensions
Lengths: 72”, 80”, 96, 108”
Depth: 16” - 20”
Height: 27” - 34”
Bespoke conversation welcome
Materials
Wood: 26 woods from light to dark and several specialty finishes
English bridle leather strapping colors:
black, dark chocolate, Havana, saddle, cognac and coach
Options:
Wood or glass table top
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