(Affordable) Irish Furniture Designers/Makers

bugler

Hello,

Not sure if here or the Home/Interior Design forum was best, but anyway...

We recently moved house, and having thrown out the atrocity that was impersonating a dining table when we arrived we are in the market for a new one.

We are open open to many different styles...what I had hoped to do was buy from an Irish furniture designer/maker instead of throwing money at Ikea/Arnotts/whoever. The table does not have to be bespoke, in fact given we are relatively budget conscious I accept it won't be.

I have been disappointed though, in that it seems impossible to find any designers whose prices are not very, very high. Most recent quote was for a solid oak table by a relatively new design studio. It was a nice simple design. The price made me laugh more than anything - nearly €6,000.

I am obviously being naive. Is it possible to get a tasteful dining table in oak/walnut/any nice wood for less than €1000? less than €1500? If so, where? I suppose I should probably stay away from "designers" and focus more on craftspeople, just I'm struggling for recommendations.

clacks

You could try www.table.ie. Not sure of the prices though.

slowburner

Did you have a look here? http://www.ccoi.ie/
You should be able to get a very nice table for €1 - 1,500, I would imagine.

artycrafty

Unfortunately the cost of materials is the problem that you will come up against.
While the big stores can import cheaper solid wood furniture, it is inferior to the quality of native timber. These are usually mass produced in a factory with cheaper labour costs.
Also if you are looking for a designed commission it will take a lot of expensive planning as in drawings, adjusting machinery, sourcing and machining the wood etc. These all cost time and money beyond the time taken to actually make the product. You are not being ripped off, just being quoted a realistic price of making a specific one off design.
It might be worth asking at a college for furniture design, as students are willing to make pieces to get their work "out there". It will still be costly enough. But if you get a piece made, it will be an investment, as that student will eventually establish themselves and your piece will be worth a fortune!

JoeB-

I think 6,000 is way over the top. I also think table.ie are quite expensive.

Incidentally table.ie got assistance from the county boards, who denied assistance to other furniture makers on the grounds that furniture making will displace existing employment. I wonder how table.ie got around that.. I did ask the county board and table.ie have a website... that was enough for the county board, that table.ie are very innovative, by having a website in 2006.


Anyway, I don't accept that native timbers are better quality than foreign timbers, and I don't agree that producing drawings, adjusting machinery, sourcing wood, or machining wood should be considered difficult, surely that's the job of a cabinet maker.

What's a realistic price? 1,000 perhaps 2,000.. it depends on the size, style, timber used, delivery address etc.


How many cubes (cubic feet) of wood in the table? If 6 foot x 3 foot that'd be 18 square feet for the table top, even if three inches thick (very thick), that'd be 4.5 cubes, allow 30% for waste gives approx 6 cubes for the table top.

Oak costs approx 35 plus VAT per cube, maple and Walnut might be 50 to 70 plus VAT per cube (high prices).

I'd be amazed if materials came to more than 400 to 600, the rest is labour.

So how much labour? 20 hours, 40 hours or 60 hours.
60 hours should be plenty, at 25 per hour, = 1,500
plus materials = approx 2,000, plus VAT = 2,400.

Those prices are very high, and it should be possible to reduce every aspect of the cost. Would it actually take 60 hours? Perhaps, it depends on how the table is made, and the techniques used.

For the price of approx 1,000 to 1,500 the OP may have to accept slightly less than the best quality, but he should be able to get a good table for that price, made from hardwoods.

fm

joe,the cost of running a workshop needs to be included also,rent,rates,insurance and all that,and yes 6k is taking the p

slowburner

To achieve a value of €6,000, a table would have to be much more than a work of art - it would have to be a piece that somehow breaks new ground or brings furniture making to new heights. It would have to be a table that would increase in value over time because it would be an 'important' piece of furniture.
These are the grounds on which a table might justify such a high price. Overheads certainly don't.

artycrafty

JB, The imported "cheap" furniture is inferior, a lower grade of timber, usually fast grown to cover the output, is used to mass produce at the lowest possible cost, as is the machining process which is set up to rattle off masses of the same item.
Also one must consider the carbon footprint of moving these large items around the world.
Native, if at all possible, is a positive environmental choice.
It does take time to make adjustments on machinery, any joiner will tell you that, if they were to make a different item each time, it is time consuming making adjustments, re-measuring etc.
While I am not supporting the €6,000 price at all, I am agreeing that €1,500 to €2,500 is more realistic, as you have kindly calculated for us.

1chippy

u getting oak at 24 a cube. Pm me the place cause its costing me double that plus vat for 2". 3" select definately dearer. 1500-2000 is pretty good money to be getting for a table. it would need to have that something special to justify paying that much money. Tables are easy made and most good furniture makers actually enjoy designing something a wee bit quirky so they dont actually look at it as a labourias task.
Maybe its the reason my accoumtant is always pestering me.

mattwoodturner

Hi,

Im a woodturner and furniture maker in Sligo. You can view some of my work at www.mattjoneswoodturner.com. I can also send you more examples of my work if you email me. info@mattjoneswoodturner.com. I can make tables in Oak and other Hardwoods but in reply to your question its not possible (in my View) to make a decent table for under 1000 Euro.

Best Regards

Matt Jones

Elbow

fm wrote: »

joe,the cost of running a workshop needs to be included also,rent,rates,insurance and all that,and yes 6k is taking the p

Just to put this point in perspective, our insurance alone is about 170 per day (based on a working week) for a company with less than 10 employees :eek:

As for the table:

For 1500 any well equipped and skilled furniture maker could do a simple but quality piece of furniture, it'd be well made, look the part & everyone that comes into the house would say "ohh thats a nice table" but there'd be nothing really special about it.

However bespoke pieces are a totally different ball game, you could be talking 60hrs + getting the design just right, doing up working drawings and figuring out how something will be done. Add to that cost of material, fixings, possibly new router cutters or spindle knives just for that job, labor and overheads, your 6 grand wouldn't be long disappearing.

slowburner

slowburner wrote: »

To achieve a value of €6,000, a table would have to be much more than a work of art - it would have to be a piece that somehow breaks new ground or brings furniture making to new heights. It would have to be a table that would increase in value over time because it would be an 'important' piece of furniture.
These are the grounds on which a table might justify such a high price. Overheads certainly don't.

The op asked about a "tasteful dining table", not a bespoke designer one. Why would you need to invest in new router cutters or spindle knives to make one table? And would you never use them again?

Elbow

slowburner wrote: »

The op asked about a "tasteful dining table", not a bespoke designer one. Why would you need to invest in new router cutters or spindle knives to make one table? And would you never use them again?

I was just making the point that the OP should be able to get a nice, simple & well made "tasteful dining table" for a budget of 1500 from any good furniture maker and to charge over that would be pushing it, even taking the expensive overheads into consideration.

As for my point about the bespoke pieces, I'm defending furniture makers/designers (myself included) that put an awful lot of effort into designing something and pushing the boundaries to get that design from screen into a physical piece of furniture. Charging 6 grand + for this kind of bespoke work is not unreasonable considering the time and quality of the finished product.

On the tooling, getting custom tools made is not that uncommon and most of the time they are not job specific, however in the past i have had to get custom cutters made for a specific project in order to give the client what they want.

slowburner

Fair enough.
There's nothing I would argue with in what you say.
I think that many pieces can justify prices of 6k - and more, and the last thing I want to do is de-value such work. I know only too well, the amount of effort, thought and expense required in 'high end' furniture making.

selephonic

I know this is an ancient thread but it still comes up in google when searching for tables. Just to say that I recently had a solid oak table made by a guy in Kimmage for €1,650. He matched our kitchen worktop and its a rock solid table.

Not sure if I can post his details up here but if anyone wants to PM I can pass them on.

recipio

selephonic wrote: »

I know this is an ancient thread but it still comes up in google when searching for tables. Just to say that I recently had a solid oak table made by a guy in Kimmage for €1,650. He matched our kitchen worktop and its a rock solid table.

Not sure if I can post his details up here but if anyone wants to PM I can pass them on.

Almost a 1/4 of the cost of the table would be VAT. This is a punitive tax and likely to drive most buyers on to the black market. Just sayin' :rolleyes: