http://www.getwoodworking.comFEATURE
36 The Woodworker & Good Woodworking August 2019
When it comes to selling and valuing your furniture,
Anselm Fraser, Principal of The Chippendale International
School of Furniture, advises you to start low, be sensible
and pragmatic, but always aim higher and higherO
scar Wilde, the 19th century
playwright, expressed it perfectly.
In his play, Lady Windermere’s Fan,
he wrote that a cynic is “a man who
knows the price of everything and the value
of nothing.” Like much of Oscar Wilde’s work,
his comedy hides a biting truth – that we often
consider moral or ethical values as being less
important than financial worth. We allow greed
to overrule good sense. It’s an issue that is
particularly pertinent for today’s woodworkers,
because the value that we place on a beautifully-
crafted piece of furniture may be rather more than
a prospective customer is prepared to pay for it.
Yes, it may have taken many, many hours to make,
using the finest woods, veneers and delicate
inlays, but if that prospective customer is looking
for a simple table or chest of drawers, then he or
she may be more interested in utility value than
financial value. In other words, spending days and
weeks crafting the finest chest of drawers in the
whole history of chests of drawers, and placing
a huge price tag on it, is no guarantee of a sale.Balance between form & function
In a world dominated by IKEA, furniture makers
have to look imaginatively at the market, design
and build accordingly, and – most importantly- always have a sensible price in mind. We may
be craftsmen and women, but our valuations
have to be pragmatic. The key concept is value.
The painting hanging on our wall may only have
aesthetic value, until we discover it’s a Picasso,
at which point it acquires huge utility value as
a way of paying off the mortgage. In the same
way, good furniture has both utility and aesthetic
value. Our wonderful chest of drawers may be
aesthetically beautiful but, if the drawers don’t
open properly, it lacks utility value.
That balance between form and function is at
the heart of all good design, from architecture to
fine woodworking. Finding that balance is the first
thing that furniture designers should always
do: who am I selling to, and what are the values
my customer is looking for?A matter of cost
The fact is, good design must be about both
the aesthetic and the utilitarian and, if necessary,
woodworkers shouldn’t be afraid to compromise,
if compromise brings down the cost to an
acceptable level. That budget will be influenced
by two things: the cost of materials and the
labour costs of designing and making the piece
of furniture. It’s a deceptively simple bit of
arithmetic: costs + your time = price. Of course,
it’s a little bit more complicated. Costs aren’t just
wood and screws; they also include everything
from heating to water, local taxes to equipment.
For the mathematically dyslexic (and I’m one),
it’s a process of determining cost and then
building in a reasonable profit margin.
Make something for £10,000 and sell it
for £11,800, and your gross profit is £1,800.
You will also go out of business rather rapidly.
The British Woodworking Federation (OK, not
representing fine furniture makers) says that,
as a rule, manufacturing gross margins after direct
costs should be in the region of 40-50%. Generally,
improving gross profit margin should always be
a clear and unambiguous business objective,
but, equally, you must have realistic expectations
about what customers may be prepared to pay.
The problem is that many woodworkers think
too highly of themselves, and charge a Rolls-
Royce rate, when their customer is looking for
a Fiat Uno. (All too infrequently, alas, the opposite
can be true!) Also remember that Pablo Picasso
only survived during his early career in Paris
by burning most of his paintings to keep warm.
I always advise our students to be pragmatic,
certainly until they have built a reputation. There’s
no point in graduating from a furniture school
and thinking you are immediately a master of
the woodworking universe. That takes time and,
in the meantime, it’s better to under-sell rather
than not sell. Remember also another line
from Lady Windermere’s Fan: “We are all in the
gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
Start low, be sensible and pragmatic, but
always aim higher and higher.FURTHER INFORMATION
To find out more about courses offered by
The Chippendale International School of
Furniture, see http://www.chippendaleschool.comTHE VALUE & COST OF
FURNITURE MAKING
Rachel Faulkner and her gilded nude lady mirror Stephen Barr with his Brexit cabinet, for which
he won the 2019 Richard Demarco prize
Paul Hartman, Canada, with his Sam Maloof rocker