At the Hilltop...

We've had a couple of weekends of soft opening. We're pretty thrilled with the way our taproom turned out. We're getting a lot of compliments, which feels really good. Without a doubt, we get the most comments on the tables that host our guests in the taproom.

Given the rave reception, we wanted to make sure we give a suitable shoutout and highlight the work of Langdon Pleasant of the Hill Top Wood Shop.

We found Langdon while searching high and low for options for barnwood to decorate our taproom. Looking at his work online, we were intrigued at the idea of getting something hand crafted and beautiful, instead of buying standard, bland restaurant tables (that we'd put into our budget). This seemed like a worthwhile splurge. We told him we were interested in three 36" 4-top tables and a long community table.

Langdon has been building gorgeous tables made out of reclaimed barnwood for some time now. While looking at his stellar work, we were concerned that 3/4" barnwood might not stand up to the rigors of a commercial taproom. Langdon accepted the challenge and searched out local saw mills to see what aged stock might exist in heavier widths. He hit a jackpot at Charles Holland's saw mill in Moncure NC.

In one of the stacks of hardwood stock, he found a bunch of old sawn 8/4 (2") maple.

One of the live edge slabs appeared to be in the shape of a fish tail. Langdon called immediately to let us know he'd found something we just had to move forward with

A second slab. Our intent was just to get one communal table made, but the quality of the wood encouraged us to expand our plan.

Here's the fish tail laid out in Langdon's workshop getting an initial sanding.

The radiant kerf marks are gorgeous

Here are the three 4-top tables all glued up and ready for bases

We decided to go with 2" black iron pipe for the bases. We really liked this look when we were touring taprooms in Asheville

Here's the fish tail with it's base. It's a bit narrow on one end and wouldn't accommodate a two legged base. The single leg prow is kinda cool.

Here are all the tables with bases attached. It's time for delivery!

We were so excited for delivery day to come. Here was a first look

As we got closer to the tables, we could see we had hit the jackpot with Langdon.

The tables showed up the day after our concrete floors had been stained and sealed, so we put down cardboard to try and protect the floors from scratching

The kerfed edges are really beautiful

Don't hate on us. When it's 100* in here, we've gotta stay hydrated

Here they are in the taproom with everything getting cleaned up. At this point, we were feeling ready to open

Here's a video of Langdon in action getting all of the tables built:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CjcTlr1r-c

Thanks so very much for the beautiful work you've done, Langdon!!

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