We are delighted to share that Bill was asked to contribute an article about custom library furniture to the August 2019 issue of Private University Products & News (PUPN). The article, consisting of a beautiful six page spread, highlights the benefits of working with a quality custom furniture maker and addresses common questions one might have when ordering custom library furniture. The following is an excerpt from the article Bill wrote, which can be found in its entirety, at this link.
The Many Benefits of Custom Furniture
- Furniture that is designed for your specific needs helps you to be more efficient in your workplace, creating greater productivity, less frustration, and less stress.
- Custom furniture can be designed to incorporate architectural elements and materials that are found in your space, providing a unified look throughout. This cohesive aesthetic is comforting, and lends an air of tradition and permanence.
- During the custom furniture design process, the future needs and uses of the furnishings are taken into consideration. This results in furnishings that will last for many, many years, reducing waste and unnecessary expense in the future.
- The most obvious and simples benefit: with custom furniture, you get what you need and want, not a catalog piece that is a compromise in some way.
How Custom is Custom?
The design of custom furniture is an open book. If you can imagine it, it can be done. Sometimes all that is needed is a simple tweak to a standard design or a slight change in dimension. In other cases, furniture is designed from the ground up to reflect a specific characteristic or to fit in an unusual space, or solve a unique problem.
Making tables and carrels accessible to a person with disabilities, creating imaginative children’s furniture, utilizing every inch of space in a reference desk: these are some of the more utilitarian reasons to consider custom. Architects work long hours to design unique and useful spaces that will make communities proud.
Furniture designers do the same. They approach furniture design with an open mind. They listen to their clients’ needs, hear their aesthetic preferences, and work to create interesting, useful furniture that brings clarity and cohesiveness to a space.
Is Custom Furniture Difficult to Order?
It certainly shouldn’t be. With a reputable furniture builder, the process of having custom furniture designed and built should be simple, straightforward, and rewarding. You and your project team work directly with the furniture designer to develop design direction. Cost quotes are based on specific designs and are adjusted up or down as changes are made to the furniture designs.
To view the rest of the tips on working with a custom library furniture maker, click here to read through the article on the PUPN website.
Browse more of Huston & Company’s Academic & Library projects, download our printable case studies, or reach out to us with any questions you might have about our custom academic & library furniture.