“What is bespoke furniture?” is a question typed into Google over 20,000 times a month. According to the Oxford Dictionary, the word bespoke refers to goods ‘made to order. When the word bespoke refers to a piece of furniture, it has been made accordingly to what the customer wants to use it for and how they would like it to look. Bespoke furniture is unique, classic, and beautiful. It can be made according to your modern homes and offices requirements.
Bespoke furniture means being able to fill that awkward space in your home with a custom-made furniture piece built to your exact specification. You may have sloping floors, low or slanted ceilings, but bespoke furniture means you will still be able to have a unique piece of furniture that represents your interior design tastes preferences, which fits perfectly and will enhance the aesthetics of your home. Whereas off-the-shelf furniture may not fit particularly well into space or be suited to your exact taste.
The benefits of bespoke furniture versus off-the-shelf furniture:
- Possibly the most beneficial factor, bespoke furniture is built to your exact requirements and design tastes, therefore, fits seamlessly into your home and space, providing the results you imagined.
- With bespoke furniture, you can choose the materials to meet your exact specifications and enhance your home’s design.
- You can also choose the finish, whether you opt for painted, lacquered, or oiled, the final product will be exactly what you envisioned, complementing the surrounding exterior and interior styles.
- Bespoke furniture tends to have a longer-lasting life quality, as the joint and parts are as high quality as the overall product, providing a timeless style piece for your home for years to come.
- Bespoke furniture is a one-of-a-kind product, giving you pride in the knowledge of ownership.
- It is simple, comfortable, and unique from other home furniture items.
Off-the-shelf furniture pieces are extremely popular as they’re readily available and priced at a lower cost than handmade and bespoke designs. However, off-the-shelf furniture has more cons than bespoke furniture.
The cons of off-the-shelf furniture:
- Off-the-shelf styles and designs may not fit the space you intended to put them in or match your home’s interior.
- Lower budget materials may be used for mass production, resulting in a poor-quality colour, grain or appearance.
- Off-the-shelf factory-produced furniture can often be ‘stained to match’ which means a factory spray finish is applied. Factory spray is hard-wearing but cheap to the touch.
- In order to keep costs down, off-the-shelf furniture often uses cheap and quick methods of joinery, providing a short product life span and poor quality joining.
- Off-the-shelf furniture is mass-produced and commonly comes in a ‘range’, promoting less choice of style, size, and design.
- It may be expensive because high-quality wood and work needed.
It all comes back to the old adage “you get what you pay for”. If you want your furniture to add value to your property, last a lifetime, reflect your image and be a talking point, then choose bespoke. So choose bespoke furniture carefully after reviewing different options for your home space.
