Behind the scenes — how a custom furniture piece is made

A custom furniture piece looks like an object when it's done. The process is what makes it that piece and not a generic one. Here's what actually happens between the first conversation and delivery day, written so you know what you're paying for.

1. Brief and site visit

We start with a conversation — usually 30-45 minutes in the workshop or on a call. What's the piece? What's the room? What's the budget range? Who else lives with it (kids, pets, dinner-party regulars)? If the piece will be installed, we visit the site to measure with our own tape — apartments are rarely square, and a 14 mm corner-to-corner error matters when you're building cabinets to the millimeter.

2. Sketch and rough cost

We come back with a hand sketch — proportions, joinery sketches, materials. Not pretty CAD renderings; an honest sketch you can react to. Alongside it: a rough cost range based on similar work, with the major variables (wood species, hardware, finish complexity) called out so you can move the budget up or down before we lock in.

3. 3D model and final quote

Once the sketch direction is agreed, we build a 3D model — usually in Rhino or Fusion — so you can see exactly what you're getting. This is where small problems surface: a drawer height that won't clear the dining bench, a wall outlet that'll sit behind a panel. We iterate until the model matches your reality, then issue a firm quote.

4. Material selection

You come to the workshop or we send samples. For a walnut piece we'll show you three or four boards from different suppliers so you can see the actual grain you'll live with, not a swatch. For hardware (hinges, pulls, drawer slides) we walk through Blum vs Häfele vs the brass shop in Jaffa we use for handles. These are decisions that show up every day for the next twenty years; we don't rush them.

5. CNC cutting and rough machining

With the geometry locked in and materials picked, we generate CNC toolpaths from the 3D model and cut the rough parts. Cabinet sides, drawer fronts, panels — all nested onto sheets, labeled with their final destination, machined with hinge cup positions pre-drilled. This is where the workshop's precision earns its keep: parts that come off the CNC ready to assemble, not "close enough."

6. Joinery and hand-finishing

CNC handles the dimensional work; hand tools handle everything else. Dovetails on visible drawer corners are cut by hand for the lines a machine can't make. Edges are eased with a block plane and a hand sand, not a router and a belt sander. The piece spends days under careful hands — this is the slow stage, and the one that decides whether the finished piece feels like custom work or like good IKEA.

7. Finishing

Sanding through grits (120 → 180 → 220 → 240), wet-sanding the raised grain after the first oil coat, applying two or three coats of hardwax oil with curing time between, hand-buffing the final surface. Two days minimum, often three. Skipping any of this is visible at year three — wood that wasn't properly sanded shows uneven sheen as the patina develops; oil that wasn't given full curing time stays slightly tacky.

8. Delivery and install

We bring the piece to the site, install it (if installation is part of the scope), walk you through care — what oils to use, what to avoid, when to expect the wood to settle. Then we leave you with the piece. Six months later we'll check in with an email asking how it's holding up. Twelve months later you have a piece of furniture that's aged a little, and an open invitation to call us back when you need anything refinished or adjusted. See the walnut kitchen project for a worked example of the full sequence.

Why this takes 6-12 weeks

From signed quote to delivery, a custom kitchen or large piece runs 8-12 weeks; a smaller piece (side table, single cabinet) runs 4-6 weeks. The bottleneck is rarely the actual machining — that's a week of work for most pieces. It's the drying time on finishes, the wait for matched boards from a supplier, the iteration on the 3D model, the install scheduling. Trying to compress this means cutting corners where you can't see them.

If you have a piece in mind, tell us about it. We'll come back with a sketch and an honest read on whether it's a project we're the right shop for.