Custom Furniture 101: How a Drawing Becomes a Piece That Fits

The most common reason a room never feels finished is not the color. It is one piece of furniture that is the wrong size: the sofa that is 8 inches too long for the wall, the console that is too deep for the hallway, the nightstand that sits 4 inches below the mattress. When nothing in a store fits, I draw the piece and have it built. Here is how that works, what it costs compared to retail, and the dimensions I check every time.

Start with a photo, then draw it to scale

Most custom pieces begin with a found image. The console above started as a retail piece the client liked but could not get in the right size. I redraw it as a top view, a front view and a side view with every dimension on it: 4 feet long, 1 foot 6 inches deep, 2 feet 6 inches tall, 2-inch legs, two open shelves. Those three views are what a furniture maker needs to give you a real price. A photo alone gets you a guess.

The dimensions that matter most

• Console or sofa table behind a sofa: 2 to 4 inches lower than the sofa back, and never longer than the sofa.
• Entry console: 14 to 16 inches deep is the sweet spot. Deeper than that eats the hallway; shallower and a lamp will not sit on it.
• Nightstand: the top within 2 inches of the top of the mattress, and at least 20 inches wide so a lamp, a glass and a phone fit without a fight.
• Sofa seat: 18 to 20 inches high, seat depth 22 to 24 inches for sitting upright, 26 or more for lounging.
• Media cabinet: as wide as the wall allows minus 12 to 15 inches on each side, so it reads as built in rather than parked.

Here is a nightstand from one of my bedroom projects: the drawing on top, the finished piece at the workshop below, before its brass X-brace went on. It is 2 feet 6 inches wide and 1 foot 8 inches deep with a single 6-inch drawer and an open shelf, sized to a specific bed. A store nightstand this wide would have been 4 inches too tall for that mattress. Drawn and built, it is exactly right, and the lacquer color matched the bed.

Where custom is actually cheaper

People assume custom means expensive. For a single chair, a store is cheaper. For anything that has to fit a specific wall or corner, custom is often the same price or less than the retail piece plus the compromise. The sectional below is a good example.

The client's room needed an L-shaped sofa of 8 feet 2 inches on one leg and 9 feet 4 inches on the other, with a tufted back, nail-head trim and wood legs. No retail sectional came in those two lengths. The drawing took me an afternoon; the upholsterer built it in a charcoal linen for less than the price of the nearest store option, which would have left an awkward 14-inch gap at the corner. The nail-head trim detail and tufting are called out right on the elevation, so the maker and I are looking at the same piece before any fabric is cut.

And this is a living room media cabinet, 126 inches wide and 84 inches tall, drawn closed and drawn open. The open view is the one that matters: it shows the frontless pullout for the components, deep drawers for toys, adjustable shelves and a cable path to the TV mounted on the wall behind. The two photos in the middle are the door detail I was after, a raised circle on a flat panel, in two possible colors. One sheet of paper, and the cabinetmaker, the client and I all agree on what we are building.

How to brief a furniture maker yourself

1. Measure the spot the piece has to fit: width, depth and the height of whatever it sits next to (sofa back, mattress top, window sill).
2. Find one photo that shows the shape you want and one that shows the finish.
3. Write the three numbers on the photo and send it with a note on what the piece has to hold.
4. Ask for a shop drawing before you pay a deposit, and check the three numbers on it against your measurements.

If you'd like the drawings done for you, that is one of my hourly services: design drawings, floor plans and furniture layouts, to scale, ready to hand to a maker or a contractor. Most single pieces take one to two hours.

More on reading and using design drawings, free, at Your Design Guide.