3 Reasons custom wood furniture is definitely worth the time and money!
Taking the leap to invest in solid custom handcrafted wood furniture can be a whirlwind. The most common area that people get stuck at when starting this journey is the price tag and wait time. Why spend extra bucks for a solid hardwood piece when you can get the same piece from an online storefront for half the price and almost immediately? Some pieces are just worth the investment, just consider that Southern Living’s first recommendation for furniture worth a larger investment is a dining table! However, you still have to be mindful that just because you are dishing out a larger amount of money doesn’t always mean you are getting a good product; quality is key here!
Quality is Key
While the big box store price is pretty tempting, you need to stop and think about what you are giving up for that reduction in cash. Is saving a couple hundred dollars really worth the shortened life of your piece due to lack of care when making, use of sub par materials, compromising on size for your space, and many other things? Will that piece really hold up over time when your kids are aggressively pounding the table for more dessert or your dog decides to get the zoomies and slides full force right into the table legs? The things you need to think about when deciding whether it is worth it or not to compromise on price are:
Material: Is the piece made out of material that will hold up to the test of time?
Care in construction: Was there care and concern taken during the build process to ensure that you were getting a quality piece that will last a lifetime?
Custom for your space: Is the piece made to perfectly fit in the space you need it for ensuring that you will get the most out of your table, cabinet, credenza, entry table, etc.
This is not the most exhaustive list of things you need to consider but it does cover lots of the questions that are flying through your mind when deciding to go down the custom built road.
Material
Veneer
Almost all pieces made from the big retailers or name brands are a version of veneer. Veneer is essentially a fancy word for plywood. A large machine cuts very thin sheets of wood they piece together to still present the wood grain look. However, they take the veneer and make a ‘sandwich’ out of it. The veneer would be the "bread” and the inside of the sandwich is typically a few layers of much cheaper sheets of wood placed together to get the desired thickness.
Source: The Wood Source
Veneer isn’t bad, that is not what we are getting at. Quality veneer can be a really great way to get an exotic wood type for a much more economical price or create very curved/architectural styles like our coffee table The Claire. However, when not treated with care, veneer can easily break, peel, or be damaged by extreme temperatures, especially in the construction process. Veneer is much easier for large factories to work with because it comes in standardized 4x8 foot sheets. This allows for the manufacturer to avoid having to carefully join together individual pieces of wood to get the desired size, saving time and money. Additionally, since the whole piece isn’t solid wood it is much cheaper, which allows for a larger profit for those companies.
When broken or damaged it is much harder to fix a veneer piece than a solid wood piece. Sanding can ‘burn through’ the wood slice and show the inner composite material. Patching is difficult due to attempting to match the color and wood grain of the pre-existing wood veneer.
Solid Wood
The most popular wood types we use are red oak, maple, white oak, and walnut. These wood types offer a variety of natural colors and grain types and are very durable. Each of these wood types has a Jenka rating higher than 1000 and is definitely worth the investment!
Solid wood is easier to fix than veneer and can easily be sanded down to re-stain if you are wanting to modernize your table or spruce it up after some years of tough love. Additionally, solid wood furniture is much more durable and dent and scratch resistant than veneer.
However, some large scale companies will try and convince you that wood veneer is a better option overall than solid wood. This is mostly due to the fact that throughout the different seasons, wood expands and contracts. Wood moves?! We know it sounds kind of crazy, but it’s true. During the summer when warmer temperatures are present, wood expands. The opposite applies to the winter, when it is cold, the wood will shrink, usually around an 1/8 of an inch so not enough for your naked eye to see.
Why would this make veneer “better”? Well, depending on how your solid wood piece is constructed, if you join pieces incorrectly then over time the expansion and contraction can lead to cracks in your solid wood piece. However, don’t let this scare you because it is very avoidable when there is care taken in the construction of your piece.
2. Care in Construction
We are a small 2 person shop, lets be honest mostly 1 person and the occasional nap time floater, that spends multiple days if not weeks on your handcrafted piece. We pride ourselves in taking time to notice the small things and use quality materials for the entire construction of your piece.
Like discussed in the last section, how you join the wood together matters, in more ways than one. Along with the expansion, we consider the specific characteristics of the wood we are using for your order. Things like, color matching, hiding knots, and grain characteristics are the forefront of our mind when picking out and arranging the wood for each furnishing we make. Many of these things you don’t have to thoughtfully plan out when working with a wood veneer.
Additionally white glove delivery is an option for the DFW area, and we all know shipping is typically where the damage occurs. We take the time to wrap our pieces in thick moving blankets before securing them in place in our trailer with ratchet straps so shifting is avoided in transit. Recognizing that delivering a damage free piece is just as important as taking the time to build the piece correctly. This is so important to factor in when considering that you spent lots of time carefully deciding how to customize this piece for your space.
3. Custom For Your Space
It is almost like a furniture shopping right of passage to be searching for hours and you finally find the exact design that you like that will work amazing for your space and then… the size is off just enough to make it either too big or too small for that wall it was going to go against. Our goal at Silver Dollar Woodcraft is to take that huge disappointment out of furniture shopping!
Every aspect of our building process is customizable; size, color, style, and wood type. Each space is different and it is important that you get the right design that will be useful and beautiful in your home.
The only downside to having the whole process customizable, is we are going to ask a ton of questions to make sure we are on the same page so gear up for at least double the questions than you were expecting!
Is it worth it?
If it were up to us to answer this for everyone then it would be 100% YES, it is worth it! However, we know everyone has different opinions and beliefs on what you should and shouldn’t spend your hard earned money on.
While we can’t answer that question for you we would strongly hope that you have seen the massive amount of pros that favor investing in furnishings that will stand the test of time and also meet the unique needs of your space. We recognize that you worked your butt off for that money and are going to want to make sure you are spending it in the best way possible for you and/or your family. If you have any questions about the custom furniture building process or any of the information included in this post we would be more than happy to answer them, feel free to contact us and we will get back to you as soon as possible!
