All my life I bought clothes off the rack, and a lot of them were really nice. I felt good in them. But once, through a fluke of business, I had the chance to have a suit custom tailored just for me. I helped design it, I picked the fabrics, and went in for two fittings to make sure everything was just right.
I discovered one of my arms was a quarter of an inch longer than the other. I discovered my shoulders sloped differently from those of the male models. It was a magnificent suit. When I wore it, and I wore it to death, I knew I stood out from the crowd and that suit defined me as a person of quality and taste. It gave me deep pleasure.
What does that have to do with furniture?
All your life you can buy furniture off the rack. If you spend a lot, you can get a fine piece but so can everybody else. There is another option. Just once, you can have a piece of furniture, or a bookshelf, or kitchen cabinets, or even just a little wooden box custom built, tailored just for you. You can design it totally to your own taste, you can choose the materials, and you can have a fine craftsman build it to perfection. Beautiful wood, burnished to an old world loveliness and depth. Unique details. Perfect joinery.
Or, if you like, you can go wild and build something amazingly radical and strange. Whatever feels good to you. And every day when you see that piece of furniture in your house it will give you pleasure because you took the time and effort to do something really, really well.
You don’t have to be a millionaire. For the same money you could buy three or four pieces off the rack. But it wouldn’t be the same………….