Is Custom Furniture the Right Move?
Custom furniture isn’t the right move for every situation. It just isn’t. It’s expensive and, honestly, a bit of a commitment. It’s a big investment, and one that isn’t always necessary.
Here’s the unvarnished truth—what I tell potential clients all the time: If you can find the right furniture in the retail market for your home or business, and the only thing that bothers you is the price, you should buy it. A custom-designed and built piece will always be more expensive—and yes, as a custom furniture designer and maker, it does kind of feel like I’m shooting myself in the foot right now. (Worst sales-pitch ever.)
When considering custom, the first thing you need to understand is that not all furniture is built the same way. How it’s made affects what it can do, how long it lasts, and what it’ll cost. There are different tiers, each serving a different need (and budget).
First up: flat-pack, IKEA-style furniture—fast, affordable, replaceable, and perfect for what it is. I build beautiful custom beds for clients, yet even I still sleep in an IKEA bed. It serves my sleeping needs just fine.
Then there’s the Mid-Market tier—think Pottery Barn or West Elm—and the so-called Luxury-Market: Restoration Hardware, Arhaus, and the like. These are a step up in quality and price, but they’re still built for the masses. Designed to fit the “average” home, whatever that means.
Next: Boutique Studios. Small operations with a strong design identity and high standards of craft—think Thos. Moser or Room & Board. You’ll get excellent work (and maybe limited customization), but it’s still their design, not yours.
If you can find a piece of furniture within these first three tiers that works for you—the right dimensions, materials, quality, and it fits your needs—buy it! But if you’ve scoured the options and nothing quite clicks, that’s when custom makes sense.
Fully custom furniture is built from scratch for your space and your needs—no templates, no standard dimensions, just solutions. Each approach solves a different kind of problem, and the right one depends on what actually needs to be solved.
What Problem Are You Solving with Custom?
There’s no wrong answer here, but there are two things custom furniture can’t fix: time and money. Custom takes a while—every piece brings its own puzzle to the workbench. That time equals cost. But aside from that, almost anything is on the table.
Got an awkward corner you keep glaring at, wondering, “What do I do with this space?” Custom can fix that. Want a home office desk that actually makes you want to sit down and tackle your inbox? Custom can fix that. Or maybe you just haven’t been able to find a piece that feels like it fits your style. Yes. Custom can fix that too.
The thing is, I’ve designed and built solutions to problems that I never would have imagined. For example, I built a music cabinet for a concert pianist who needed one small enough to tuck away under their grand piano yet large enough to hold all their sheet music. What I ended up building looked like a fairly simple cabinet, but there wasn’t a centimeter of spare space inside. In addition, all the drawers needed to have only three sides so that sheets of music could be easily grabbed from them. It was one of the most unique and rewarding projects I’ve ever taken on.
I want to be very clear about one thing: the desire to have a piece of furniture unique to your home, lifestyle, or personal style is a perfectly legitimate reason to choose custom. The things we fill our homes with, the things that we interact with every day, matter. I like to think of it like dressing for the job you’re performing. I don't wear my jeans and t-shirt to get a bank loan; I don't wear my pajamas to work in the woodshop–Okay, fine, a couple of times– and I don't wear a suit to sit on the couch and watch TV. And it's not just because I don't want people staring at me like I'm nuts––though, yeah, that is part of it. The clothes match the moment. So should the furniture. Use a desk that helps you focus. Gather around a dining table that vibes with your family's personality. And cook at a kitchen island you love standing at.
I love custom-designed furniture. I wish all furniture could be custom-built, but it just isn’t practical. My clients are best served when the designs we work through together serve a specific solution: design, quality, function, style, or any other crazy reason I haven’t thought of yet. If you’re ready to start your custom project today, reach out and let us know what’s on your mind. If not, no hard feelings. There is a lot of incredible furniture out there to pick from.
