Looking for lumber

I went by 2 of the larger hardwood suppliers in my area (Crosscut Hardwoods and Edensaw), looking for lumber for the small table I'm starting. For the first time I struck out finding what I wanted. I was looking to build the table out of Cherry. I wanted the top to be one piece and it needed to be about 10" x 20". Most of the boards I found were closer to 6" and 8" wide. I didn't want to glue up the top, I thought the joint might look odd on the half circle shape. I did find one board that would work, but they were calling it "Figured Cherry" and it was over $20/bf. If it had figure in it I might have gone with it, but I didn't really see any figure in it. Unless you call sapwood figure!

On to Plan B. Now I'm looking to use veneer for the top. I'll just add one more thing to this project that I haven't done yet. This simple little table is turning into a real experiment for me now. I started looking around online for veneers. I found some really nice Redwood Burl veneer at B&B Rare Woods. I had come across this company awhile ago, but I haven't ordered from them yet. I sent off a few questions to them, and I'm waiting to hear back. It sounds like they are in the middle of moving to a new location, so I'll give them a little while to get back to me.

In the meantime, I plan to pick up some inexpensive wood to start the mock-up. I plan to mock-up a couple different sizes of legs, to figure out which proportions work best. Design and proportions is something I'm still working on and I think a mock-up is needed. I've seen a lot of new woodworkers try their own designs, and quite often they come out chunky and heavy. This is going to be a somewhat small/delicate table, and I don't want tree trunks for legs.

It's interesting, Christopher Schwarz just talked about design in the latest issue of Popular Woodworking (Oct 2008). I had recently come to the same realization that there are no real design classes out there for woodworkers. Part of what I want to share in this blog, is how I develop that skill. I've been thinking about looking at some of the community colleges around me to see what they offer. If anyone is aware of design classes that can be taken by "average" people let me know.