ducduc's added their new products to their website, including images of their new The Table. Some additional information on it: it's made of walnut, not just walnut stain, which is nice. I forgot to mention the storage under each sliding leaf/panel and under the benches as well. That's a lot of storage. And the cushions are upholstered in Crypton fabric, a patented, stain-resistant miracle fabric of some sort. Gotta love it. And the whole thing's done up with non-VOC lacquer to boot.
So when you consider that this table might just become your new hearth, the center of your family life for generations to come, the $8,500 price starts to sound downright reasonable, right? Good, because the benches are separate ($1,100), but the booster chair/high chair modules are only $125 per. Back to work, people, you have a table to pay off.
ducduc the table, as shown, $10,850, est 8-10 wks delivery [ducducnyc]
previously: ducduc goes from 'kids' to 'family' with table, bunkbeds, etc at icff
At how much???? $10,850???? OMG
I like these guys' work, and it's a nice table, but they'll be able to keep track of their sales using the fingers on one hand. I just don't get what they are trying to do. They could source the thing in Europe, using solid FSC certified hardwood, and it would end up being a third of that, or less.
[it's obviously not a mass-market product, but $10k is actually within the range of other high-end designer furniture. It's a strategy, I think. -ed.]
Is it? This isn't a part of the market I play in, but you got me curious so I'm looking around. DWR's most expensive table (Prouve) is "only" $3600. Looking further, I see a table made entirely from stainless steel (lots of it), and even that's only 7 grand (2modern.com). Highbrowfurniture.com tops out at $4200 for an Aalto table. Hivemodern.com goes to $4500 for a different Prouve table. Found one! Moss has an absolutely hideous table at $8900. And Sublime American Design has a John Houshmand table (to its credit, the top is a single slab of Bubinga sliced out lengthways from a gigantic old growth tree), at $25k. So I guess you're right(ish).
Anyway, I'm not saying ducduc should head to China and try to get this thing out the door for a grand, but they could get that exact table made at exactly the same (or better) quality, even under cushy European labor conditions, and still sell it for vastly less money. That seems like a better strategy to me. Or they could get it made for vastly less money, still sell it for $8000, and put the difference in their pocket. (Maybe that's what they're doing?) I guess time will tell how their way works out.
[yeah, I was researching the same thing and found that table on moss, too. yikes. My sense is, for tables that expensive, you're usually talking about interior designers and six figure decorating budgets and not a high degree of price consciousness. There are plenty of SoHo stores with big hefty tables for $5-8k, maybe, and designers who get them fabricated to spec and probably charge 2x that much. And even though a vintage Prouve table is easily 10x the reproduction, I personally have a hard time saying ducduc is in the same league as Jean freakin Prouve, price or no. I'll ask them about it sometime, though. -ed.]
Whatever the price point, I just don't think it's a very good design. Ducduc says it's "for kids and grown ups alike" as if it were a revolutionary idea, but aren't kids and grown ups already sharing dining tables everywhere? (That's what the Kinderzeat is for, my friends). And, seriously, what is the point of the reversible panels? If drawing on dry eraser board is what your child wants to do every time she sits down at the table (that's quite an assumption, but let's go with it), wouldn't it be easier to bring a dry eraser board to your regular, gorgeous, $3600 Prouve table? Why should its function be so narrowly pre-determined?
I'm becoming slightly obsessed with this crazy table so I went and watched that mocoloco video. The removable panels are not solid walnut- you can see edgebanding where there should be end grain when she pulls it out. So "solid hardwood" is really "veneered plywood"? I actually understand the reason for not using solid there- the way they've oriented the grain, expansion and shrinkage would play havoc with those sliding pins and the tight tolerance between the sides. But still. For that kind of money you kind expect someone to figure out how to make it out of solid. It's difficult, but not impossible.
Stephanie makes some good points as well.
What if the center person has to get up to leave the table?
Yeah I agree with Scott back there. Besides, why would you want to pay that much for a table just so your kid can scribble?
Haven't checked it out yet but all I keep hearing about the table is Sharp edges, sharp edges. My mom keeps telling me its not so much how your furniture looks anymore - you gotta get something that won't poke your kid's eye out. Mine's about 1 and a half and keeps bumping into everything. Does anyone know about some kind of padding or something? I heard about this one called ABC Fun Pads - even checked out their Web site [deleted]. And its supposed to be some kind of furniture padding with coloring area, city scenes etc. If anyone's heard about it before please let me know.
later
John
[considering how new this table is to the market, John, you must travel in pretty design-savvy circles if everyone's talking about this table already. Otherwise I would've thought you were just flacking for those fun pads you "heard about". -ed.]