Expert: Jamie Yocono - 9/30/2008

Question
Hi Jamie,
I stumbled on this site and thought you might be a good resource. My partner and I are building a hospitality business and want to have all of the furnishings custom designed to a new and specific style sensibility. Our idea is to have templates created for the building of all of the furnishings, pay for the rights outright and after the first pieces are built use them as design templates to market them, partially through our hospitality property and to high end retail and custom orders. We are uncertain about whether to use a number of artisans for this process as well as designers of upholstered furnishings or to work with a single designer in cooperation with our interior designer. Also, for budgeting purposes we are looking for numbers on R&D as well as manufacturing/building costs. This may be outside your scope of information, but I thought you might be a good place to start. Thank you!

Answer
Shannon,

Although your questions sound specific, they're a little too vague for me to answer without knowing a little more about how you plan on marketing your pieces. Only you and your partner will be privy to your R & D costs, and you'll have to add those costs into the actual manufacturing costs in order to guesstimate your finished retail prices. I would think it's going to depend on how many "tweaks" you make to the original designs, with regard to material selection, construction techniques, as well as manufacturing costs. Simply put - the more material you buy at one time, the less you'll pay for it per square foot. So even though it's costing more up front, it will be less in the long run. Also, depending on how your pieces are constructed. there are ways to save money. If you're veneering something, you've got the cost of labor for veneering, but are saving using veneer over solid wood.

The bottom line? It's all a trade off. Save here, spend there. Use less expensive hardware, spend more on marketing so you will sell what you make.

Years ago, I worked with a fellow who fancied himself as an inventor. He was a massage therapist by trade, but was constantly inventing these funny little devices that would help him in his line of work. I'd been seeing him for some massages (a bad back from too many years of lifting wood!) and we got to talking about what he was looking for - someone to make the prototypes of his designs - and what I needed - which was weekly massages. We traded services for years.

So I suspect that it would be helpful for you to find someone to work with - whether you actually hire that person and they work for you, or you simply hire that person to make things. You could make them sign some sort of confidentiality agreement that the designs belong to you, and any tweaking that improves the design belongs to you, too. The person would simply be hired as a "builder/engineer" for your pieces. But if this person doesn't have a real incentive to improve your design by suggesting some tweaks to it, why would they? So you might have to make it worth their while - as in incentives down the line. If the pieces are successful, you will give that builder a manufacturing commitment. That way, it behooves them to make a better piece.

Another incentive for a furniture maker would be to have an "in" with an interior designer. Designers are always looking to have small, accent pieces built. So if you can connect the builder with the designer in a strong working relationship - well, I just don't know too many builders who would say no to that prospect.

There is a site that I was recently asked to join - http://www.woodartistsgallery.com  - that might give you some ideas about starting that relationship between designer/builder/interior designer and more. I've chosen not to join them for a variety of reasons, mostly because shipping is a huge concern, as well as how weather and ambient moisture can damage furniture. I am in the desert, where it's often 4% humidity. If I ship a piece to Florida, where the humidity level is MUCH higher, there's a good chance that my piece would suffer. It's just not worth it to me to deal with that. So you'll need to think about not only your designs, but how they will react in different locales.

My best advice - find a local woodworker. I'm sure there are some who's business is slow, and they'll have the time and energy to help you out. Develop a relationship with them, make it worth their while, and you'll be infinitely rewarded.  If you want to write back with your location, I can try to help you find some local members of the Furniture Society, an organization of which I am a member. I have a roster here that tells me all the members all over the world. Their latest website has (from what I can tell) removed this search feature, and that's a shame.

Good luck, write back if you need more answers, I'll try to help.

Jamie Yocono
Wood It Is! Custom Cabinetry
Las Vegas, NV
www.wooditis.com