Black Centre Table in Carved Teak with Ivory and Gold Detail

Black is the finish that hides nothing. Every other colour forgives a little; black forgives none of it, and the reason is the grain.

Teak, like all timber, has pores - fine open channels running along the grain. Under a mid-brown polish they read as part of the wood and nobody looks twice. Put black over them and each pore fills with a slightly different depth of colour, so the surface comes up with a fine grey speckle running through it. In a photograph it looks like dust. In a room it looks like the finish has failed.

So a black finish starts long before any black goes on. The surface is filled - a paste worked hard across the grain, forced into every pore, then cut back flush so nothing is left on the surface. That is done and repeated until a wet rag over the wood shows no texture at all.

Only then does the colour go on, and only then does it read as one solid depth rather than a wood grain seen through paint.

The gilding that follows depends on it entirely - gold laid on a speckled black ground borrows the speckle. On a properly filled ground it looks like metal on lacquer.

Structure: solid teak throughout, hand-carved by master Indian artisans, with traditional joinery at every junction.

Top: shaped oval with a gilt centre panel under glass, inside ivory and black borders.

Body: black sections with ivory panels set into a carved frame, gilded foliate sprays and plaited bands over both.

Base: continuous run of gilded acanthus scroll feet around the outline.

Finish: hand-applied grain-filled black with ivory panels and gilded carving. All tones are set by you, and a single-tone finish is available.

Size: custom sizes made to order - final measurements confirmed in writing before production.

Photography: images on this page are of the actual product, not renders.

Black shows every scuff, and gold sits proud of it, so nothing rigid touches this table anywhere in transit.

A soft non-abrasive layer goes over every surface first, laid smoothly with no folds - a crease pressed into a black lacquered face for days will leave a burnished line.

The gilded scroll feet run right around the base at its widest and lowest point, so a continuous foam band follows them with deeper collars at the corners. The gilded sprays on the body get their own strips. A rigid panel is fitted over the top, bearing on its outer border rather than on the glazed centre panel. Corrugated panels then build a rigid shell, the base is blocked and braced, and the outer carton is edge-reinforced so stacked weight is carried by the packaging. Everything unwraps by hand.

Free PAN-India delivery is included in the price - no zone rates, no distance surcharge, no freight line at checkout. The table costs the same delivered to Kota as to Kakinada.

Dent-free arrival is guaranteed. It leaves in multi-layer protective packaging, travels with handlers briefed on lacquered and gilded finishes, and is checked at every transfer point. If anything is not right when you open it, tell us and we make it right - the guarantee sits with us, not with the transporter.

Because the table is made to order, production begins once your size and finish tones are confirmed in writing. Grain filling and building a black finish take considerably longer than a wax polish, and the gilding follows after that, so we give you a realistic timeline and a dispatch note with an expected delivery window.

The solid teak structure and its joinery carry a 20-year warranty - the shaped body, the panel frames, the top frame and the joints where the scroll base meets the body. If a joint opens or a member fails within those twenty years, we repair or replace it.

A lifetime warranty against termite damage runs alongside it and never expires. Teak's natural oils are what termites avoid, and our seasoning and finishing routine is built around preserving them, so the timber is guaranteed for as long as the table is yours.

A black finish makes the timber underneath matter more, not less - any movement in the wood shows as a pale line through black long before it would through a polish. That is what a twenty-year frame warranty is written for. All of it is built from start to finish in our own workshop by the master Indian artisans who make everything we sell, from timber we season ourselves.