Chinese Elm Kang Table — Single Drawer, Forged Iron Pull

In the coldest months across northern China's Shanxi and Hebei provinces, daily life migrated to the kang — a broad, heated brick platform built into the home and warmed from below by the kitchen fire. Families ate, slept, worked, and gathered on the kang, and atop it sat a low table like this one: a kangzhuo, built close to the ground, sized for life lived at floor level. This example is solid northern elm — yumu in Chinese — the provincial workhorse wood whose bold, swirling grain becomes more dramatic with every decade of use. The framed-and-panel top, 1¼" thick, sits above a chamfered apron with scrolled bracket spandrels at each end. The single drawer runs the full width of the case and retains its original hand-forged iron hardware: a flat bar pull above, a hanging ring below — both functional, both untouched. Construction throughout is traditional mortise-and-tenon, no nails. A wax-rubbed finish has deepened across generations into the amber-to-russet patina you see here.

At 12" tall and 28¼" wide, this piece works as naturally in a contemporary interior as it did on a heated platform in Qing-dynasty China — low side table, nightstand, display plinth. The iron hardware and centuries of honest use are built into the wood itself.

CONDITION

Good. Age-appropriate wear throughout — heavy surface scratching on the top and drawer faces is authentic to the piece's working history. The feet show chipping and loss at the base corners consistent with significant age. Drawer slides; iron pull is intact and original.

DIMENSIONS / SPECIFICATIONS

• Height: 12"
• Width: 28¼"
• Depth: 15½"
• Top Thickness: 1¼"
• Drawer Depth: 2¼"
• Construction: Mortise-and-tenon, no nails
• Hardware: Hand-forged iron strap pull with hanging ring, original
• Finish: Wax rubbed, aged patina
• Wood: Solid northern elm (yumu) 
• Campbell's Soup Can (4" H) Shown for Scale