Wooden furniture has a timeless charm and a warmth that sets it apart from other pieces. When that item was handcrafted by professional artisans and is a one-of-a-kind piece, the beauty and value rise significantly. Ordering a piece with bespoke joinery to your specifications can be daunting if you’re used to mass-produced furniture. However, there are lots of benefits to paying a little more for a unique, high-end item.
What Sort Of Bespoke Furniture Can You Get?
When you work with the right people, you can get pretty much anything you want. You have to be sure that the company has the experience and the willingness to create something to order like this. Some small-scale companies may have a set list of pieces they specialize in making, while others are more open to trying new things. There are a few ways you can find out what sort of furniture a bespoke woodworking company can make. The best place to start is a gallery of past projects on their website. This should showcase their skill and diversity across various projects. You can also look at online reviews to see whether past clients have posted positive comments about their bespoke pieces and added images. If you’re still not sure, you can always contact the company directly with your ideas and see what they say. You might get a reply with some interesting design ideas, examples of past work, and a fair quote.
5 Reasons Bespoke Joinery Is Better
1) Unique Pieces
The first benefit may be obvious but cannot be understated. Modern mass-produced items don’t have any character to them because they look as though they were put together at home from a kit or made to basic specifications. You know that a lot of these pieces are also sitting in someone else’s home and would be completely identical in form and purpose. Bespoke pieces are guaranteed to be unique. Even if a woodworking shop has a blueprint for a particular piece of furniture, the hand-cut and handcrafted elements mean that no two pieces will be exactly the same.
Designers are free to make alterations to the shape, wood, and dimensions as needed. This adaptability is perfect for anyone who needs a quality piece of woodworking in their home but has specific ideas about its features. You can discuss ideas with designers and see if they’ll make what you have in mind. That design could be a small reworking of a current model or something completely unique based on your own drawings.
2) Professional Craftspeople
Getting bespoke furniture means working with people who are experts in their craft. You should be able to find local woodworkers who have years of experience crafting all kinds of pieces of furniture and perfecting the finer details. This means more than just cutting and fitting wood to specifications and varnishing it afterward. Anyone with some power tools can attempt that in a mass-production setting, but they won’t create anything with the same level of expert care. That’s because artisan woodworkers are also skilled sculptors and joiners. They create pieces that are visually beautiful and wonderfully tactile while showing off their individual style.
These craftspeople should also have a strong understanding of wood types. This knowledge means that instead of getting some basic timber and making do, they’ll source the right types. They’ll know if you’re better off getting a piece of oak with stunning grain, a more minimalist and paler pine, or a deep mahogany for an old-fashioned aesthetic.
3) Built For Functionality
These custom pieces of wooden furniture should be as practical as they are beautiful to look at. The pieces will catch the eye for their looks on first impressions, and then the deeper benefits will shine through. For example, let’s say you require the perfect sideboard/cabinet for a living space. It needs a smooth top at just the right dimensions to fit the space, the right amount of shelving to display items of importance, and also some hidden storage areas. A skilled artisan can work with you to transform your ideas into reality and maybe suggest some adjustments to make the piece as practical as possible.
4) Built For Longevity
When you get custom woodworking from one of those skilled artisans, you’re also guaranteed to get something that will last. Expert woodworking isn’t just about shaping the wood and the clever functional and aesthetic elements. It’s also about understanding the importance of effective joinery for long-lasting pieces. Mass-produced items thrown together in a hurry don’t have the same stability as something made with care. You’ll know the difference wooden joinery can make if you’ve ever had a wobbly flat-pack bookcase made with a few pieces of plywood and some screws.
5) Better Long Term Value
The final benefit here is the long-term value of these pieces of custom furniture and bespoke joinery. Longevity offers value through its long-term use. However, a good piece of wooden furniture can also be appreciated in monetary value over time. You may end up working with a designer whose pieces become desirable collectibles of the future. You never know who the must-have designer of the future will be, and if you have a one-off piece, that’s only going to make it more desirable. So, should you ever decide to sell the piece, such as by putting it up for auction, you could get a good return.
Similarly, if you have a beautiful piece of bespoke woodwork in your home as a more permanent fixture, that feature could end up increasing the value of the property. It becomes a unique point of interest that could bring in more offers and allow for a higher valuation.
Go Bespoke And See The Difference
You will have to pay more initially to get the skill and beautiful finish of an artisan piece of furniture with bespoke joinery. It’s worth the extra cost and the waiting time, however, to get all the benefits mentioned above. You can have something beautiful that takes pride of place in your home for the rest of your life.
