What Makes Custom Furniture Worth the Investment?

In an exclusive interaction with Adlin Pertishya Jebaraj, correspondent of Home India Magazine, David Samuel, founder of FurnDepot, shares the major trends of the personalized furniture shift in India, where the apartments are smaller, clients are seeking customized beds with storage facilities, expandable dining tables, or study modules specially placed to fulfill their requirements.

David has built a reputation for transforming spaces into highly functional, visually compelling homes and offices that reflect the personalities of the people who live or work in them. His vision is to make great design more accessible, conscious, and personal, one project at a time. 

What are the major trends influencing demand for personalized furniture? 

The biggest change in India, where people want their homes to be an expression of themselves, is the shift in personal expression in home interiors. One noteworthy emerging trend is the multifunctional and space-saving designs. In the case of apartments that are smaller, clients are seeking customized beds with storage facilities, expandable dining tables, or study modules specially placed to fulfill their requirements. There is also an increasing effect of the international design exposure by means of Pinterest, Instagram, and YouTube. Customers bring in references to Scandinavian minimalism, Japandi, Indian fusion styles, and expect the concepts to be applied in a manner that meets their homes. Furthermore, the values of sustainability and conscious living are also shifting the demand towards high-quality, durable furniture rather than the one that is mass-market and disposable furniture. While tailor-made enables you to use superior materials, provide work to local artisans, and minimize wastage, something that the current consumer has a strong interest in. 

How do you teach new buyers about the worth and long term of custom work? 

Many first-time buyers would feel that custom furniture is too costly at face value, and hence, the strategy is to learn by experience. Taking the clients on a journey through the how and why of the price, whether it is how the materials and joinery are conducted, or the aspects of finish and customization. I like to present comparisons of how a solid wood/plywood custom cabinet can endure 15-20 years with very little care compared to other mass-produced versions that can just start to fall apart in 3- 5 years. The value of a long-term, the fit, and the finishing of a suit are in a different world in comparison to fast fashion. Encouraging the clients to visit the workshops or back-of-house videos to have a look at the craftsmanship, perfection, and hard work of every piece that is created. When they see that their furniture is made by trained craftsmen, not made on an assembly line, that value is emotional and that it's financial. This is to get them to realize that furniture is not a one-time purchase; it is an investment in comfort, function, and design. After a while, they realize that custom work has nothing to do with how much you spend on it, but it has to do with how much you get out of what you spend. 

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What are the largest operation-related challenges in operating a custom furniture company today? 

Bringing the perfect balance between customization and consistency is one pressing challenge. If there is a unique order, there wouldn’t be any unified production line; everything is individual, designs, sizes, and materials are determined according to the client. This requires a lot of coordination of design, carpentry, procurement, and site teams. Another important one is the skills labour shortage. Carpenters who know how to work to the degree of precision, completion, and detailing that is demanded when working with high-quality custom work are becoming harder and harder to find, as younger people turn off from the trades today. Timelines are also difficult. Custom work takes time, to detail, to cure, to finish, and to quality check, but customers want quicker services. Finally, there are logistical and site issues (particularly in urban India) that also pose difficulties. Transporting big and fragile structures into small or ancient elevators or constructions can be quite tough, and sometimes, last-minute changes need to be made. While mitigating these challenges, the work is all worth it at the end because of the satisfying feeling that comes with creating something that is absolutely unique and that fits in perfectly with the space and lifestyle of a client. 

How valuable is ethicality and sustainable sourcing to your production process? 

It is totally in the middle of the work. For example, FurnDepot holds the view that finding beautiful design should not require the expense of the environment or ethics. To take a proactive interest in responsibly sourced solid wood, low-VOC finishes, and recyclable materials and strong products. The plywood and laminates are used to be extracted by approved vendors that are made in line with environmental requirements. The remnants of bigger projects are integrated into the smaller house ornaments, shelves or upcycled. 

This is because nothing can be wasted and no inefficiencies. In addition to materials, fair wages and respectful working conditions of the craftsmen are also an aspect of being ethical. This is not only custom-made furniture, but rather a consciously made product. With this trajectory at hand, the clients are becoming more and more appreciative of that. Since the industry is changing, not only consider sustainability a trend, but a duty as well. A duty that defines our approach to designing, constructing and delivering. 

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Where is the future of custom-made furniture headed in the next 5–10 years? 

The next generation of custom furniture will be the combination of technology, sustainability and personalized by scale. Within the following 510 years, AI and digital technology will become more prominent market players, too, including virtual room design and AR-simulated previews, AI-aided designer recommendations regarding their customer choices and spatial dynamics. It will involve the clients more in the creative process, and the process will include their co-creation of designs with designers in real time. Meanwhile, modular customization will increase, providing options to clients in a modular structure where they have tailored options within a somewhat structured framework, which assists in reconciling cost, speed and flexibility. Green will no longer have an option. The customers will inquire about transparency in sourcing, durability and life-cycle impact. Brands burdened with environmentally responsible construction, altruistic workmanship, and low-impact production will be the talk of the day. Finally, space-saving, custom, foldable, or stow-compressible furniture which facilitates space-optimisation, that allows people to store them, or smart-high-tech interiors, will become highly sought after in urban premises, due to the shrinking size of urban premises and multifunctionality of urban spaces. To conclude, devising products that are intelligent, purposeful and future-ready will be the need of the hour, going forward.