What is so special about Custom cabinetry?
There are many places to buy cabinetry that will fit pretty well, and there are many places in a home where pretty good is plenty good enough. However, there are some places in your home that need to be special. They need to be more than off the rack and better than you see everywhere else. For these places, extra care must be taken in designing the perfect atmosphere. Some people buy their suits off the rack, and there is nothing wrong with that. But to those who know, there is nothing like a custom tailored suit. Likewise, those who know wood are rarely awed by what is mass-produced.
Why does some furniture last longer than others?
There are three aspects of any piece of furniture that determine its lifespan.
The first is the quality of the wood. Naturally some types of wood are harder and more durable than others. Much of the furniture made today is formed from softer varieties of traditional woods. Softer woods are easier to form and easier on machines. “Cherry” can often mean any wood that once stained turns out a reddish color. Oak can really be Ash and Maple can be a low grade of Birch. Even these substitutions are not inherently bad. However there are varieties of wood native to China, Indonesia, and other such places, which have very little structural strength. These woods look very beautiful in a show room, and feel firm enough but they dry out and deteriorate in a very short time.
The second is the quality of the joints. Many of the joints used, especially in cabinetry, are based on speed and simplicity rather than accuracy and strength. Even with a good joint, dry cracking wood will break away from the glue. Composite products such as K3 (a type of particle board) have no torsion strength and therefore crack and break at the joint if not thoroughly supported.
The third is the quality of the finish. Most production furniture has the minimum amount of finish over the wood. This makes the piece more susceptible to humidity changes. It also increases the probability of a bump or scratch damaging through to the wood. Some finishes take a more in-depth process of application such as a chemical reaction or hand rubbing. Many production companies use second-rate finishes because they are cheaper and dry faster. Frequently time and quality sacrificed in production results in time and quality lost afterwards.
Why is custom work so much more expensive than prefabricated goods?
Most prefabricated furniture is made with cheaper materials in countries where labor is a fraction of the North American rate. Large companies can make very large material orders further reducing cost. Frequently pre-fabricated cabinetry is built to the minimum strength required in order to reduce labor and materials. A custom piece takes extra time to discuss with the client and design. Custom work means individual setup of each machine necessary and cleanup before moving on.
Why does custom woodwork take so long?
First of all, plans must be made in great detail to avoid any calculation errors along the way. Every joint and relationship must be determined before any wood is touched. No other trade has as many tools as a woodworker. That is because every piece of wood must be cut, straightened, planed, shaped, sanded, cut to length, and fit. This process is often repeated several times on the same piece. Even when the materials come technically ready to use, warping and inconsistencies in the wood require most of the process to be redone. Any given project has hundreds of individual and unique pieces each taking care and time. If any part is rushed, there are often visible inconsistencies in the finished product. Finally, there is all of the preparation for finishing followed by carefully applied coats alternated with sanding. The amount of time and care spent on a piece is a large part of what distinguishes it from others.
Is it possible to perfectly match existing woodwork?
The answer to this question is two fold. Yes it is very possible to make a new piece of furniture to match perfectly to existing wood. The more perfect the match, the more the work to get there. First of all, the shapes of the bits and tools used before are so varied that a perfect match often takes two steps instead of one without the original tool. The color match is by far the most difficult.
For a very reasonable match, stain can be matched on a scrap and compared to the original. For most purposes, this is more than adequate even though some sections of the piece may vary slightly in hue. Wood is an organic material with its own pigment. Much of wood’s natural beauty is derived from the variations in the amount and color of this pigment. Besides this, the cell orientation changes throughout each board. Again, although this affects color in every level of finishing, this variety can produce awe-inspiring formations.
For perfection the stain must be first made lighter and then faded in tones with the entire original beside for comparison. Each segment must be done separately to compensate for the natural color variation and grain pattern in wood. Then tinted finishes and finally waxes applied in turn. If too much color is added then the piece must be stripped back to bare wood and started again. As you can see, this process takes far more time and money. Most of what we do has 3-6 layers of finish (including stains). For a perfect match, the 8-20 layers of finish can hide much of the natural beauty in the wood.
What sort of environmental impact does woodwork have?
Cabinetry and furniture have not been at the forefront of any significant environmental debates, but that does not diminish the impact it has on the environment. There are four levels of impact on the environment.
The first level is that of cutting down trees. The large forests of the earth are second only to algae in returning CO2 back to harmless carbon and essential oxygen. Much of the wood in today’s furniture is built from the wood of a rain-forest. In North America there are very strict standards around replanting and conservation of our forests. In many parts of the world, not only is the forest stripped bare, but many of the trees and growth are burned as waste in the way of a desirable tree. Entire species are wiped out such as Cuban Mahogany. Cuban Mahogany was used so heavily in the late 1700′s and early 1800′s that it is all but extinct. Honduran Mahogany, although not as nice of wood, was then used as a replacement to the point that it is now difficult to obtain. It was almost wiped out by the mass production of veneer for use in office buildings in the early 1900′s. Through the 1970′s several other “mahoganies” were used although they are a very distant relative and do not work or feel remotely the same.
The second level is that of waste. By volume, almost none of this wood exists today even in the form of furniture. Because of poor building practices and wasteful purging of items that are no longer stylish, most of this wood is in landfills. Both furniture and cabinets are intentionally built to last a maximum of 10 years before being obsolete. The general public prefers to buy relatively cheap products knowing full well that it will need replacing as much as eight times that of a properly built piece. This allows for trendy furniture that can continually be trashed and replaced. There are entire sections in most land fills dedicated to discarded wood products, and these are only for the small percentage that has been separated from the general trash.
The third is that of chemicals. There is no practical way to eliminate chemicals from modern woodworking, but there are ways to reduce the impact. First of all, the cheapest cabinets and furniture are either built in or built with components from countries with little to no environmental concern. It tends to be cheapest to ignore environmental impact and that savings is passed right down to the consumer. For example, in North America there are more and more restrictions on the use of Formaldehyde in sheet goods (any particle board, plywood or fiberboard). Products that come from countries such as China have levels so high that many woodworkers refuse to work with them for personal safety reasons. In the children’s toy industry, North America has placed great restrictions on China and other countries for the safety of consumers. These restrictions do not apply to the furniture and cabinets that come from these countries despite the fact that they have equal contact with families and their children. Another example is in the finishes. North America and some European countries are developing very strict standards for the chemical agents in them. The new, compliant finishes are much harder to work with, more expensive and take a much longer drying process. Most developing countries will not bother to restrict the chemicals released into the atmosphere.
The fourth is transportation. For the sake of cheap labor, much of the raw materials and finished products have been shipped multiple places around the world. The fuel consumed in this process adds to an already high environmental cost for the cabinets and furniture sold by most large companies.
The practical solution to this is in six parts. The first three depend largely on consumer decisions, the other three on the construction methods of cabinetmakers like me.
First of all, wood that is sourced from sustainable forests should be used wherever possible. There are beautiful hardwoods that are not in danger of extinction and are not reducing the planet’s ability to process CO2.
Secondly, people in North America should consider purchasing products made primarily with North American wood. This ensures that our own policies protect the forests where the wood is found. This also drastically reduces the amount of fuel burned in the transportation.
Thirdly, it is perfectly possible to build cabinets that easily last 25 years (some hardware may need replacing before then). In the case of furniture, there is no reason why a piece cannot be used and enjoyed for generations. Without knowing it, most families can consume many tons of wood throughout their lifetime through poor purchasing and renovation choices. It is unnecessary to continue to cut down trees to replace cabinets and furniture that was not properly built in the first place.
Fourthly, as an independent cabinet maker I can find and use materials that are far more environmentally friendly while raising the cost very little. I intentionally continue to hunt down better products and sources so that I can build longer lasting pieces from safer materials to work with.
Fifthly, I can design and build my pieces stronger and more reliable than factory production because I can individually select boards for their grain structure (this applies to every board even while using the same species). I can sacrifice a little time to use a process that has a better end result. I can build pieces that will outlast almost anything produced in a production line.
Six, I make special effort to be ahead of the curve in finishing chemicals. For example, I have almost entirely switched my finishing products to waterborne alternatives. This is not yet mandatory even here in Alberta but I have seen the benefits in my health and the environment.
Although perhaps not as dramatic as a new Hybrid, better decisions and practical solutions in every purchase make a tangible difference in our surrounding environment. Personally I see much of what is produced today in both building structures, their trim and the cabinets and furniture that fill them as wasteful garbage because most of what is built and purchased today will be in landfills within 25 years.
Why do you have to custom design each piece?
All of my work is original. Each piece is built to match the tastes of the client and the existing surroundings of its new home. Even a simple size change usually requires at least half of the measurements to change. None of what I do is a bought plan or downloaded off the Internet. Even if they were, the sizes usually have to be altered. To really make a design that fits, I have to learn the tastes and needs of the client. Only then can I perfectly meld form and function into a fluid structure. Then I move from an image (whether mine or someone else’s) to a blueprint. If I make a mistake on the blueprint, I will make that mistake in the project. That is very costly to me in both time and materials so I must take the time needed to get it right the first time. The result is furniture that is neither disproportionate nor awkward to use.