This dining table ($3695-$4295) from Restoration Hardware is a grand balustrade of solid elm that is topped with elm planks reclaimed from 19th-century courtyard floors and doors. During the Renaissance, when the French city of Lyon was a center of the silk trade, an elaborate system of covered courtyards and corridors allowed silk merchants to transport their precious wares, rain or shine. This extension table’s base was inspired by a salvaged wooden balustrade that flanked a stairway in one of those courtyards. Like the original, its balusters are hand-turned from solid elm. Timbers from 19th-century floors and doors were reclaimed to create the top.
