Easy money

[custard]

No one's knocking out dodgy antiques any more.

The antique furniture market has now recorded nearly fifteen straight years of price declines. Yes, the very highest quality pieces, genuinely museum quality, continue to set new auction records. But prices for the vast majority of upper mid to low end pieces of "brown furniture" continue to get whittled away. Consequently there's very little money in either honest restoration or out and out fakery, you'll have noticed that the antique shop that used to be on every high street has either become a depressing jumble/house clearance shop, or been replaced by an estate agency.

The post war years saw a quiet but none the less epic battle fought between traditionalism and modernism, and modernism won hands down. The only role for antiques now is amongst a fast ageing and depleting group of pensioners, or as novelty interior design items in a Philippe Starck style, eclectic post-modern pastiche.

Oh, and you'd also be hard pressed to find a London penthouse for £800k!

 

[TFrench]

The real winners are the ones cutting out oversize letters that say "home" or "love" or any other ridiculous phrase that states the blindingly obvious, slapping a bit of annie sloan paint on it and selling it in an I saw you coming style shop! Money for old rope!

 

[Sporky McGuffin]

This guy seems to make a good living out of what most would call junk, even has a TV series. Can't believe the prices some people are willing to pay - http://www.drewpritchard.co.uk/collections/new-stock?

I've seen the show a few times; he has an excellent eye for what will sell (he's not forcing anyone) and a team of skilled restorers. I don't like all of it, and most of it is beyond my means, but I strongly disagree that it's junk.

 

[YorkshireMartin]

I'm sure most of you guys work with wood because you love to do so. When speaking in terms of any business, I think there is a finite and fairly low limit to what you'll actually be able to achieve in business if you stick to producing/doing what you love. It matters not what the craftsman loves, except to the craftman, with few exceptions. I'm a beginner and I'm light years away from ever contemplating earning a single penny from woodworking by the way. I hate the oil drum with the lump of wood too, but, I understand why it's produced.

Many people are conditioned to buy what I consider junk, including me. Perhaps also, they simply want to change the look of their house frequently, which for most rules out spending thousands on a single hand crafted item. Even then, I'd say people struggle to justify anything priced higher than ikea, who, lets be honest, set the bar for the masses. Thats where the serious money is spent.

To make a lot of money in any business, you need to produce complete tat. It doesn't matter if you're talking about music, furniture, clothing, cars, insurance or anything. It's all lowest common denominator because the vast majority of people simply don't have the cash to pay for quality and perceptions of quality have been so heavily manipulated by the purveyors of tat, a genuine quality oriented business is never going to see the same level of success. We are all regularly sold the lowest possible quality for the highest possible price in all sectors. Even Rolls Royce isn't what it once was.

Without wishing to state the obvious, it's how business works. It feels wrong, but stepping outside of that very often means failure, or at the very least, a significant cheapening of the original offering through compromise over time.

Just my opinion of course. Personally, I found the moral compromise to be too great to continue so I sold up, but even then, I excluded my client list from the sale. My last hurrah in my own eyes. It makes me a terrible business person but in refusing to compete with the large corporations by lowering my standards of customer care, I stuck to what I believe is important, which I think is all anyone can ask for in life.

No intention to digress too much, but such posts often raise far deeper issues in my addled brain.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

We're all quick to criticise and voice our opinions, but the heading of the thread is "Easy Money".
If it were that easy, we'd all be doing it.

 

[YorkshireMartin]

We're all quick to criticise and voice our opinions, but the heading of the thread is "Easy Money".
If it were that easy, we'd all be doing it.

shh I'm halfway through my first barrel.

 

[blackrodd]

This guy seems to make a good living out of what most would call junk, even has a TV series. Can't believe the prices some people are willing to pay - http://www.drewpritchard.co.uk/collections/new-stock?

I've seen the show a few times; he has an excellent eye for what will sell (he's not forcing anyone) and a team of skilled restorers. I don't like all of it, and most of it is beyond my means, but I strongly disagree that it's junk.

+1 for the above, It's never junk, just vastly overpriced for my mind.
Rodders

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Definitely a bit "I Saw You Coming".

 

[blackrodd]

As Ikea is 100 miles away in Sunny Bristol, I'm not sure of all that they sell.
I still love the Chocolate box cottage look, always have and much prefer the odour of the dung spreader and slow tractors
and horse riders to the traffic noise and car parking, etc
So anything made from the 1600's to 1950's nearly always blends, and the furniture is solid and traditional, oak, elm, ash, pine, etc all play a role.
Rodders

 

[blackrodd]

Definitely a bit "I Saw You Coming".

Was that written on that Condom machine?
Rodders

 

[user22161]

Many people are conditioned to buy what I consider junk, including me. Perhaps also, they simply want to change the look of their house frequently, which for most rules out spending thousands on a single hand crafted item. Even then, I'd say people struggle to justify anything priced higher than ikea, who, lets be honest, set the bar for the masses. Thats where the serious money is spent.

Funnily enough, I was in an ikea yesterday and it was absolutely heaving, bought some dining chairs for a holiday apartment but wouldn't want them at home.

I had the misfortune to buy the assets of a bankrupt furniture retailer in 1990, just in time for the recession and pit closures - bloody good timing that wasn't. Previous owners had gone bust from a mixture of just high end furniture and being bent as nine bob notes, running off with the proceeds and leaving suppliers high and dry. We stocked from Ercol, Bevan Funnell down through G Plan and Stag cabinet, with suites ranging from £799 mass produced up to £5k for hand made. As the mines closed and the recession bit, there was a noticeable shift down in prices customers were looking for and we had to shift to the cheaper end. One thing which sticks in my mind was that to a large percentage of customers, teak, mahogany, walnut, oak etc. were colours, not different woods. As long as the colour (and price) was what they wanted, they weren't bothered what it was made from. Stuck it for 10 years and then sold out to a competitor.

 

[beganasatree]

Martin forget the oil drum,I going to use a large cable drum it even has a hole for the brolly. :wink:

Peter.

 

[YorkshireMartin]

Martin forget the oil drum,I going to use a large cable drum it even has a hole for the brolly. :wink:

Peter.

Now, that's classy.

 

[petermillard]

Martin forget the oil drum,I going to use a large cable drum it even has a hole for the brolly. :wink:.

Now, that's classy.

Well, depends how it's done:-

And there's another 33 cable reel 'Upcycled Wonders' here.

Or there's this one; I quite like them - wouldn't pay retail for them, as I'm more of a 'maker' than a shopper, but I can see how some people would choose this over, say, ho-hum off-the-shelf furniture from the high street* chains.

As I said way back towards the start of this thread, if they can get the asking price, then good luck to them; I'm sure if Jimmy DiResta had made the oil drum and scaff board table there'd be folks all over it saying how great it was - and it would probably be 10 times the price

Pete

* Not really on the high street now, more likely to be fund on a wind-swept 'retail park' miles from anywhere...

 

[custard]

To make a lot of money in any business, you need to produce complete tat...a genuine quality oriented business is never going to see the same level of success.

Apple? BMW? Lie Nielsen?

There are many reasons bespoke furniture is a low profit business, but to claim that high quality is always a bad business strategy is a bit too simplistic.

 

[swb58]

Anyone seen 'Money for Nothing' on BBC? There are a couple of episodes on I player now. People's junk is saved from the tip then up cycled, to be fair some of it is good but I'd never have the cheek to be asking their prices. The three manhole covers turned into dressing tables sticks in my mind!

 

[NazNomad]

Anyone seen 'Money for Nothing' on BBC?

Did you see the one where those huge logs were transformed into a few spoons and a couple of chopping boards?

... and the prices they were charging even though they didn't buy the wood to begin with.


I suppose it's all about where you live, where your market is, and how much pee you can take in the knowledge that Joe Public is, for the most part, clueless.

 

[No skills]

If somebody can make a product - sell it for profit and pay their bills and taxes then good for them, the basics of life seem to get forgotten in threads like this.

 

[Sporky McGuffin]

If somebody can make a product - sell it for profit and pay their bills and taxes then good for them, the basics of life seem to get forgotten in threads like this.

I thought the point of the forum was to drone on and on ad nauseum that everyone not on the forum was an idiot.

 

[Jelly]

Many people are conditioned to buy what I consider junk, including me. Perhaps also, they simply want to change the look of their house frequently, which for most rules out spending thousands on a single hand crafted item. Even then, I'd say people struggle to justify anything priced higher than ikea, who, lets be honest, set the bar for the masses. Thats where the serious money is spent.

As much as anything, taste has changed.
The lavish baroque feel of 17th and 18th century furniture slowly faded from fashion to the altogether less objectionably ostentatious but still artfully detailed feel of the more accomplished arts and crafts work, and the modernist designers took cues from Bauhaus, the shakers, the oriental tradition and anywhere else clean lines and simple geometric forms could be seen and really ran with "less is more" which also lends itself well to manufacturing en mass...

People still want quality, look at how OakFunitureLand market themselves, they just don't know where to find it anymore...

I'd also challenge the assertation that people don't want to buy "furniture for life" one of my colleagues splashed out £3k on a pair of solid elm cabinets with the intention that "it will see me out", he's 29... Another of my colleagues was chatting to me whilst I was sketching ornate tables with cabriole legs in my lunch break, and commented that 'I'd love to have something like that, but I can't afford to" a cursory visit to ebay later, she's now working out exactly what features and style she'd like, she's 25 and otherwise a dedicated follower of fashion.

My experience is that younger not-nearly-as-affluent-as-they'd-have-been-a-generation-ago professionals are increasingly looking to develop an individual style/taste and invest themselves in it both financially and emotionally, in part because it builds in to an increasingly important sense of self and partially because they know that they aren't likely to be in a position to keep buying disposable but ultimately expensive stuff over and over again in the model their parents were able to, so looking to a more 'classic' style insulates them from fashionable things rapidly becoming dated.

Edit:

To make a lot of money in any business, you need to produce complete tat...a genuine quality oriented business is never going to see the same level of success.

Apple? BMW? Lie Nielsen?

There are many reasons bespoke furniture is a low profit business, but to claim that high quality is always a bad business strategy is a bit too simplistic.

If I might be so bold as to state the bleeding obvious...

What separates yourself and makers like yourself from BMW (for instance) is a brand identity...

Would it be crazy to think that the individual makers and small businesses that comprise the backbone of bespoke furniture in the UK could get together, pool resources and work with one of the Guilds or Industry Organisations* to form a unifying brand for traditionally made British furniture?

A brand identity directing people to look for the right people, and a targeted advertising campaign to make people aware that they can actually buy bespoke furniture, that it doesn't have to be outside their price range** and to make doing so an aspirational goal for them (just like owning a Beemer or IPhone or LN plane is).

* Wood for Good, the British Woodworking Federation, the Institute of Carpenters and the Guild of Master Craftsmen all spring to mind.

**I remain flabbergasted by some of the discussions on here of pricing and commerciality reavealing just how inexpensively a lot of the more uncomplicated items of bespoke furniture are sold, (relative to the amount of effort and thought put in by the maker), certainly those uncomplicated bits of furniture are not selling for an unreasonable amount more than OakFurnitureLand or DFS charge for their top-end furniture, and would seem positively reasonable when set against prices for (exquisitely) factory-made repro furniture in specialist retailers like Pondsford or Ward Bros.