July 2022

Thor’s Hammer Furniture Spotlight

We recently built a dining table in the style of Dutch-Australian furniture designer and maker Kees Westra, to complement our customer's existing coffee table.⁠ We love it when customers come to us with specific stylistic requirements that inspire us to be creative with our designs and solutions. Check out this custom table below and get in touch if you’d like to co-design your own new table!

Dining table in Dutch-Australian furniture style — *Nobby giving the table the final polish! Table designed by David Scerri⁠. Photo by Rohan Thomson.*

Who Was Kees Westra?

Kees Westra was a Dutch-Australian cabinet maker, born in Holland in 1926. After settling in Canberra in the fifties, Kees Westra opened a cabinet-making firm on Barrier Street in Fyshwick, known as 'K. Westra’.

The business grew in popularity, and even made many of the Fred Ward mid-century furniture designs that were extremely popular at the time.

Custom Designing a Large Dining Table for Our Customer

Aside from his work with Fred Ward, Kees Westra also had many of his own, lesser-known designs, a few of which were coffee tables.⁠

Our customer was after a larger dining table though—to fit around 12 people—so we custom-designed this piece taking extra care to remain faithful to his desired design aesthetic.⁠ This included tapered legs and visible bridle joins to the rails, shaped rails and a floating top effect.⁠

Made from recycled spotted gum and then clean dressed to reveal the beautiful variation in colour and grain, this table is now happily settled in its new home in Canberra 👌🏽⁠

Need Your Own Custom-Designed Furniture?

We love to see your inspirations and the plans and photos of your space, and then work together to create a design which will complement all the details of your project and is the best fit for your design needs.

After chatting with you and reviewing any photos or sketches you send us, we’ll develop a rough concept and give you an estimate on the cost before proceeding to the detailed design and final costing.

After your final approval of the design and cost, your piece will be made right here in our Canberra workshop by our skilled craftspeople who deeply understand the material. We only use recycled timber, and most often Australian hardwoods.

You are also welcome to come in during the build to see the progress and stay involved as your furniture is built.

How to Get Your Own Furniture Custom-Designed & Made by Thor’s Hammer

Here are five steps you can take to kickstart the process of getting your very own custom-designed furniture from Thor’s Hammer.

Check out our furniture designs page to get an idea of what we have made in the past
Gather any photos, sketches or descriptions of what you have in mind
Make a furniture enquiry here, or simply send an email directly to hammer@thors.com.au including any photos and extra details
Be sure to leave us your phone number and/or email address so that we can get in touch with you ASAP
You can also call us on (02) 6282 9900 or visit us in the workshop and showroom here in Canberra, for a chat. Here’s some more info on our address and opening hours.

Thor’s Hammer has been recycling timber and designing furniture and architectural products for 28 years. We have a highly skilled team of designers, timber recyclers, joiners and furniture makers, handpicked from Canberra and its surrounding regions.

So when you work with us to create your custom-designed furniture, you can rest assured it will be built with care and will last a lifetime—or most likely several lifetimes!