 Re: Is he flamin dreamin? $20K blue gum table
I'd say it's worth at least 10K for starters. So even if it was 100% mark-up, that's not bad.
I used to build furniture and do woodworking when I was in high school - about 6 years worth. At one of Portland Oregon's big malls, I won the design trophy for one of my small tables.
For starters, I'd consider what a professional is worth for a month's salary. I think that 5K per month is the bottom rung for a craftsman, let alone an experienced one, especially if they own the business. And that's wage - not any consideration to equipment.
So when I sit here looking at that table, and think about the time it takes to:
1. Cut and mill the wood
2. Age the wood
3. Joint, plane or cut the wood
4. Fine-tune the joints
5. Fasten
6. Sand, and sand, and sand.
7. Finish it, sand more, finish it, sand more, finish it, etc., etc.
Seems that 10K to 12K might be the low end.
Let alone that the pieces for the benches are not easy to come by. The flat plank sections are probably a lot easier to cut, or come-by, than the end bench legs.
So 20K is probably very realistic for a high-end furniture store.
A lot will depend on how much time was put into small details, and how well it was fastened and finished. Including "was it sanded underneath the table top?" Some tables are not sanded beneath, but a nice one will be. A high-end furniture maker may even finish the underside with a Tung-oil or something, rather than leave it as bare wood.
Also, which furniture that large, simply moving the pieces and sections and sections alone, is worth hundreds in itself - just that one aspect. It's not where just one man moves, flips or hangs a small chair or chessboard to sanding, spraying or blowing dust from the grain with the air nozzle.
Each leg of the long benches would be an easy 90 degreen cut, if those were giant machined dowel rods. But they are not dowel rods. They are sections of trees, which are irregular. There could be up to an hour of time, just to wood-word the end of each leg with saws, sanders and chisels, so that it butts-up perfectly square to the bench, and then to the floor. And then each leg has to be nearly perfect, otherwise a high center leg, even if just a 1/4" high, forms a small teeter-totter effect. If any one leg is wood-worked 1/4" too short, it's a discard. So anywhere up to a full workshift could be required to do nothing else but get the legs fitted. Time could be a lot less, but not unless we want to be talking about a table only worth 7K.
I can't see the underside, but if I was building that, there would be a fairly strong framework hidden beneath to reduce future warping.
Custom furniture is what I would be doing right now, had the super fine wood dust from shop saws and sanders not caused so many pimples on my skin. Pruning saw dust is not near as dry or fine in most cases. |