Handcrafted Furniture? "Limited Edition" Sofas and Chairs?

Our furniture is made individually to order in a small workshop. Almost every product is unique, made in the customer's choice of six distinctive designs plus design options, various heights, seat depths and firmnesses, thousands of fabrics, many lengths and wood colors, and other custom options. But we don't like to use the word "handcrafted" to refer to our furniture, only because that word has become so over-used and so inappropriately used as to become almost meaningless. We feel it's better to discuss the benefits that result from a product's being made individually to the customer's order, and to point out the pride of ownership that people can expect from having high-quality products uniquely made for them, rather than our carrying on in the usual marketingspeak.

We do use power tools in making our furniture (as do probably most makers of "handcrafted" products). But our making of furniture to order is still almost the opposite of typical mass production. We make these sofas and chairs with care and with close attention to accurately carrying out each customer's unique set of specifications. We also devote a very unusual amount of attention to strength of construction, quality of wood selection, precise joinery, careful wood finishing, and well-tailored upholstering. Our fabric covers are cut one at a time, not in stacks as is normal in factories, and we rarely sell the same fabric twice. This kind of individual care and custom work would never be a part of what goes into typical furniture.

What you'll find in stores are the mostly-the-same products that cater to the latest preferences of the mass market; these latest trends currently include bulky dimensions and very soft support, unsuitable for many rooms and people. Those products are usually made by routinely passing standard parts down an assembly line, with each worker doing the same narrowly-defined industrial task day after day. The cost advantages of mass production are obviously important to many people, but we take pride in providing furniture that is more satisfying to many customers than the mass-market products. And we know that, compared with the typical, short-lived, stapled-together furniture (which is the nature of most furniture in stores these days), our products will usually be more economical in the long run, and better for the environment, because of their extra-durable construction and their ease of renewal (by means of replacement covers and cushion filling).

Although we try to avoid applying over-used terms like "handcrafted" to our furniture, that term probably in actuality describes our furniture far more accurately than most other products to which it is applied these days.

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Are you attracted to "Limited Editions"? Products including furniture are sometimes described as such, in order to try to convince people to pay a premium price. Those editions are often "limited" to hundreds or even thousands. (Or are they "limited" to the number that the producers figure they can sell?) By contrast:
Almost every piece of furniture that we make is an edition of one, unless the same customer orders a matching set.

We do continue offering the same underlying designs through the years, which allows our satisfied customers to add additional, compatible pieces years later. It also promotes increasingly high quality, since we continue to develop ways to make our products even better as we make additional pieces with the same basic structure. But what people actually see varies almost infinitely, with the customer's choice from among many thousands of fabrics being only part of the range of possible variations.

The quantities produced of our furniture are "limited" naturally, not by some marketer's thoughts about how to get a high price. Our furniture line makes no attempt to cater to the preferences of the general public. Our designs are very out-of-the-ordinary, in a world in which most people's tastes are shaped by the usual, typical things that they regularly see around them. Added to that is the fact that most of our furniture is outside the mass-market price range. (These prices result not from high-overhead retailing but from high quality standards and from the costs of relatively slow, expensive custom work.) Also, we don't sell through stores or through third parties of any kind; most people don't think of buying furniture except from local retailers. Combine all of the above with the fact that every product we make is individually customized in one of thousands of fabrics plus numerous other options, and you'll see why it's almost certain that nobody will see furniture such as you purchase from us anyplace except in your home.

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If you have questions and don't want to keep going through this website to seek the answers, please call 1-800-659-0436, leaving a message and a number to call back if we aren't there at the time. To send e-mail, click here.

Artistic Furniture?

The people in our workshop who make this furniture take artisan-like pride in what they make, and our customers can exercize their own artistic inclinations in creating satisfying settings, choosing from an excellent range of wood stains, our essentially unlimited fabric selection, our design options and dimension options.

If one has artistic inclinations, what better environment in which to work than one furnished with sofas and chairs made to order to coordinate harmoniously with the rest of one's decor?

Two models that we try to show only to people who are prepared to pay a real premium for high-quality hand craftsmanship:
The model shown above and on the left, our New Jersey model, is one we don't offer on our home page, because we have to charge so much for it that most people turn away from us when they find out what the total charge would be, when the base price is added together with the costs of the other custom options that people typically choose. (The base price for a sofa or chair is $1200 more than that of the same-size California model.)

The kind of price problem described above also applies to our Maryland model, only more so ($1700 more than the equivalent California model). The Maryland model is shown at the top of this page and just below. (The all-wood back shown below can be ordered on any of our models.)

The side panels in the middles of these sides can be either fabric-covered or exposed wood, at the same price.

The Maryland model fits in very well with a decor that's reminiscent of the Arts and Crafts period. But it can also be perfect in a modern setting, as shown at the top of the page.

The Seattle-area customer who sent us this picture of her sectional sofa commented that she was an artist, and that she appreciated the handcrafted look of our furniture. One can imagine what a perfect setting this must be in which to practice one's art.

If you have questions and don't want to keep going through this website to seek the answers, please call 1-800-659-0436, leaving a message and a number to call back if we aren't there at the time. To send e-mail, click here.

To go (or return) to the Comfy 1 detailed home page and much more information on our various designs, quality features, sofas, sectional sofas, and prices (on individual product pages), click here.

To go (or return) to the Comfy 1 condensed home page and more information on our various designs, quality features, sofas, sectional sofas, and prices (on individual product pages), click here.