table design

I grabbed some wood today from yon lumberyard. I got 14bf of 4/4 Jatoba
(Brazilian Cherry, I was told), $3.08/bf, and 10bf of (not the clearest) tiger maple
4/4, that was on sale for $2.50/bf.

I like the jatoba quite a bit, it's got the texture and grain of cherry
but is a bit darker, and 60% the price :D

I'm working a concept around in my mind, I'd like to do a fancy table with
these contrasting woods. Was thinking about building a jatoba frame with
a maple panel in the center. I'd like to bookmatch the tiger maple, but
my bandsaw is fitted with a very small blade, and I think the blade is
bent, and one guide block is missing, and I know next to nothing about
bandsaw setup, so resawing for bookmatching might be difficult, unless I
could somehow do it on the ol' table saw. Also, is 3/8" (or less, due to
kerf), going to be enough material for the center of the table?

On to the proportions. I'd like to work the golden ratio into this
project. I guess I'd start with the table height. Let me preface this by
saying that this is a table for the table's sake, and is not to fill any
specific purpose in life other than to gratify me immensely. A few
popular table heights seem to be 34", 24", and 20". If I were to go with,
say, 24", would it make sense then to make the width 24/phi and the length
24*phi, so it'd be roughly 38-7/8"L x 14-7/8"W x 24"H? That sound
reasonable? or should the legs form the golden rectangle with the top and
floor, and the top form a larger golden rectangle, or what? I'm not quite
sure what I want to do at this point, just fishing for ideers.

I'm gonna grab a pencil and play with the numbers whilst I wait for the
responses to roll in :)