Let's be Honest -can you even make money from woodworking?

[focusonwood]

I suspect it's a little like writing a book.

You might have a brilliant story, it's entertaining and gripping, your friends and family read it and are full of praise. But publishers and agents aren't interested as there's no market for swashbuckling pirate robots pillaging the galaxy.

A guy down the road has a similar story about swashbuckling pirate robots in bikini's pillaging the galaxy and the publishers and agents are all over it and love the bikini angle. He's now got a book signing in Aldi and has been paid a retainer up front and has splashed out on a nearly new Ford Fiesta.

You can make money writing stories if you find a market for your niche...I suspect you can also find a market for your wooden creations if the quality is good enough and you can find people who are interested in phallic based furniture (or what ever your niche is).

Disclaimer; the wood I chop up and smash together in my 'workshop' isn't of interest to anyone as I'm still learning it and not expecting to make a living from it. I'm just stating my opinion.

 

[blackrodd]

Stage 3 of you're market research should include keeping the day job and building a customer base part time,
This allows you to make Final details of best sellers, materials and marketing, and customer feed back ought to be guiding you.
Starting self employed means working long hours to get established, remember if it was easy everyone would be doing it!
Regards Rodders

 

[sawdust1]

As i've been making a living from furniture making/woodwork for the last 26 years i so had to get involved.
If i had a mortgage to pay then, now way, i know 2 local furniture makers and a joinery who have wives with good jobs and they all say that without that income they cold not keep going.
It was easier when i started back in the early 90's as their was no Oak furniture land and the like and pine was all the rage, at the height i had a full time employee and a 6 month waiting list, thats all gone now.
Their is only so much furniture you can get in a house so my regulars have gone, so i then added joinery and carpentry and property maintenance/home improvement to my can do list, i also have a website sunnyfields poultry housing so yes things are ticking along. A lot of work away from the workshop which
i don't really like.
The constant money worries is the only negative as all bills for running our house and a family of 4 comes from working with my hands, and their is never enough of that !
So back to your question, if you can diversify when its needed then maybe, but its going to be hard work.

 

[custard]

Here's the hard numbers for bespoke furniture making.

Assuming you're in a reasonably populous, reasonably affluent area then you'll likely earn £15,000-25,000 a year after raw materials and variable costs, but before any fixed overheads like renting a workshop, running a van, or paying back equipment loans. That's the reality for me and almost every other independent furniture maker that's willing to have an honest conversation. Furthermore, similar numbers seem to hold true in Canada, the USA, Germany, Italy, Denmark, and pretty much every western country where I've encountered furniture makers.

To earn more you have to move into fitted furniture, joinery packages, site work, woodwork teaching, yacht fit outs, etc. But all of these things have a tendency to crowd out the pure furniture making over time.

So if you have a supportive partner in a "proper" job, or mix furniture making with more lucrative part time work as say an IT contractor, or a decent early retirement pension from the military or police, or a wedge of money in the bank; plus you have a fair sized workshop on a mortgage free property in an area where there are plenty of well-off potential customers; then bespoke furniture making is a viable possibility. And under those circumstances a very lovely occupation it is too.

If you're the sole breadwinner, have a young family, have a recent mortgage (especially in the South East), have a rented workshop and need to borrow money to buy machinery, then the reality is that it's unlikely to work out.

 

[Jacob]

I don't get the emphasis on "bespoke". If what you make is any good surely you should do a run of them. One-offs are grossly inefficient and expensive and you are at the mercy of a single client (probably with a head full of carp ideas!).
My first business was as a toymaker (many years ago - Carnaby St etc) and we did multiples of 100s and as a result got highly efficient with a consistently high quality.
Then period joinery, not quite the same but a run of 5 or more windows/doors starts becoming worthwhile and more interesting.
If you are going to make a table for sale, make 5!

PS and for most people virtually nothing they buy is ever bespoke. Even in a posh restaurant you wouldn't expect the chef to cook up something special just for you - not least because he/she is supposed to be the expert and have a better idea of what makes a good meal.

PPS being able to handle bespoke orders is perhaps something to contemplate after many years of acquiring skill and experience, but not before?

PPPs and other crafts don't do bespoke - a potter will turn out runs of identical objects year after year. Craft is about repetition.

There's a huge potential area of activity between bespoke and site work or teaching. You just need a bit of confidence in your ability and be prepared to take a few risks. Much better than waiting for a wealthy twerp to come through your door and tell you what to do!

 

[custard]

I don't get the emphasis on "bespoke". If what you make is any good surely you should do a run of them.

Sure. I do some batch work, other makers I know do more, and virtually everyone batches their chairs when they do them.

But there's no single, silver bullet solution to making a decent wage from furniture. Batching requires more storage space and risks damage whilst in storage. If you store in component form then joints can move and not close up tightly or well. Plus, in my particular case, I often use highly figured and unique timbers. I can't rely on the availability of these going forward. I know I'll find something pretty special in 2016, but I've no idea what it will be. I understand that's a negative in one respect, but looked at from a different angle it means I have zero competition. If a customer gets a taste for my heavily rippled English Walnut boards, or pippy Elm taken from the grounds of Hollyrood Palace, or beautifully figured Tiger Oak, or CITES banned and unobtainable Rio Rosewood, then they pay my prices or they do without.

Hey, it's not making me rich but it's a formula that, most days at least, puts a smile on my face!

 

[Jacob]

....I do some batch work, other makers I know do more, ....

Almost all makers of almost everything do "batch" work - it's normal.
If you haven't the space that means smaller or higher value items etc.
I question the whole idea of "bespoke" - it makes sense for posh tailors and dress makers but not for woodworkers.
The only things I've ever had made "bespoke" are my teeth (NHS)!

 

[Phil Pascoe]

There was an article in one of the wood working mags in the early 90s where someone had said they had to charge £20 an hour as a self employed furniture maker. This was immediately condemned as being absolute nonsense by several people. He came back with a breakdown of all his costs - insurances, machine maintenance, council tax, electricity, time spent sourcing materials and other things that couldn't be directly charged, you name it - and proved that he'd have been £100 per week better of working for someone else.

 

[sawdust1]

Sorry jacob i will disagree with your bespoke comments as i would consider most of my furniture work to be bespoke.
Say for example a customer rings up " can you make an Oak dresser to fit between our TV and a window " so i call around and measure up they choose 3 draws, 3 doors with open shelves above colour and finish of their choice, as its made to order is that not bespoke.
All my kitchens are made to fit a customers space which would be different to a house in the next street, it would not fit anywhere else , is that not bespoke.
Say the Oak dresser costs £2,000, i would expect 50 % deposit and balance on delivery then onto the next order to keep the cash flowing. I would not have the spare money, space or the time to make say 5 more and then try and find customers to take them unless i had an outlet for them, that would tie up thousands of pounds with the risk of them being unsold.
phil.p surely the wage you pay yourself is separate from the running costs of your business. You should know these fixed cost day to day and a proportion of this is factored into the cost of an item.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Certainly. He was working for himself because he wanted to, and if he charged more he would not have had a business. The penalty he paid for happiness and self satisfaction was knowing he'd have earned more working for someone else.

 

[lurker]

This is not woodwork, but I priced up doing what I do as a consultant, in a profession with very few overheads and no equipment beyond a PC and printer. Basically just selling my knowledge but no physical product.
To bank the same money and have the same paid holiday plus a few days a year sick pay, I would need to charge a minimum of £80 per hour. I think people do not realistically calculate the hours that are not chargeable.

 

[AJB Temple]

I could not agree more with lurker and others. I have worked most of my life as a partner in one of the recognised professions for a well known global firm or as a director of companies. Generally we were selling a time pyramid (lots of hours of junior staff, fewer but far more expensive for senior staff). If I told you my charge out rate many would be shocked, but the fact is that you cannot charge every hour and the accumulation of serous expertise and experience is costly. Most people in my experience materially under estimate both business fixed and variable costs and business risks. They also see their time rather than selling their expertise - which can lead to dramatically different value assessments. I love working with my hands. It makes no sense at all for me to do it for a living though and this may be true of many. For some the trade off is worth it, but then the work is verging on vocational. I think it is pretty difficult to make serious money from woodworking. To make money (and especially capital value in a business that can be sold) businesses need to be scalable and create a brand. It is a different ball game.

It is interesting that the OP has not responded much to his thread.

 

[sitefive]

wow thank you guys for all the ideas,
by ''bespoke'' I mean- same item but each in different dimensions/colours- to fit somewhere, So I guess I have that already covered by sticking to only few things.

At first when I started I made loooads of different items (small stuff) like shelves etc, sold some 30+ started to calculate the time it takes to make those small items and expenses and general effort and dropped that idea as it gave just terrible terrible return for the headaches involved dealing with lots of people for small value items.
Now I'm sticking only to larger items where I can charge more and need to get only few customers and that is working out much better.

I guess I'm really unlucky as I live up in North and I barely get any online orders from my area, pretty much everything needs to be shipped to around the London. I do OK locally tho for things always in demand such as tables, but again, the houses where they go to are just super posh and there aren't as many of them here as near London.

Now the plan is just to earn more funds from this and try to expand more online with a hope that one day I can grow this to larger scale and can outsource the work to another country and just ship the products over here, I can see few people already doing this.

 

[Adam9453]

I do find it irritating when someone's goal in business is to achieve outsourcing.
Support your local area and country as they would have no doubt supported you.
If you want to flog imported furniture just open a bloody shop!

 

[Terry - Somerset]

I took up amateur woodwork/turning after taking early retirement. Having previously been an accountant I did idly wonder whether there might be a living to be made out of a hobby. After idly wondering I came to the conclusion that there were two ways:

- very high end, high quality, high prices. This route requires real design ability, craftsmanship and access to the right markets which may anyway take 5 - 15 years to develop as a business (if you have the skills)

- products with a wider market appeal - lower prices, higher volumes. To stand a chance of being competitive you need the right machinery, a production line approach to manufacture, sourcing materials by the cu. metre, etc. As a one man band trying to do everything - production, sales, administration, purchasing, cash collection, accounting etc - it is very hard work. If you employ people you have added issues with recruitment, training, insurance, sickness cover etc etc. Pricing will nearly always be compared to the mass market (think Ikea etc) where costs are low due to high volumes, multi £m investment in plant and/or cheap far east labour rates.

I came to the conclusion that I was lacking the skill and dedication for the former. The latter involves running a business in which the products, materials and processes are subordinate to money and efficiency - I spent 40 years doing this and it would not be a fun hobby.

You may, I hope, strike lucky and find a product niche in which you develop real expertise, too small or specialist for other companies to think worth competing. Starting with some knowledge of running a small business and woodworking obviously helps compared to a "blank sheet". But most products are easily copied and often improved by others - the is where a lot of our inspiration comes from.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

"To bank the same money and have the same paid holiday plus a few days a year sick pay, I would need to charge a minimum of £80 per hour. I think people do not realistically calculate the hours that are not chargeable."
Iirc the guy I posted about thought in his case it could be up to three hours in eight - and this was an established business not speculation.

 

[Jacob]

.......
I guess I'm really unlucky as I live up in North and I barely get any online orders from my area, pretty much everything needs to be shipped to around the London. I do OK locally tho for things always in demand such as tables, but again, the houses where they go to are just super posh and there aren't as many of them here as near London.

I'd call that lucky; all the advantages of living up north but selling down south. I'm surprised that more southerners don't up sticks and move - you could buy a large house plus workshop in the north east for the price of a tiny flat in London

Now the plan is just to earn more funds from this and try to expand more online with a hope that one day I can grow this to larger scale and can outsource the work to another country and just ship the products over here, I can see few people already doing this.

Maybe your are more "designer" than "maker"? Develop the design side perhaps?

 

[Jacob]

....
- very high end, high quality, high prices. This route requires real design ability, craftsmanship and access to the right markets .............
products with a wider market appeal - lower prices, higher volumes. To stand a chance of being competitive you need the right machinery, a production line approach to manufacture, sourcing materi.....

They both require real design ability and craftsmanship, it's not either/or there's a continuous spectrum of stuff made which is in between.

 

[mind_the_goat]

I guess I'm really unlucky as I live up in North and I barely get any online orders from my area, pretty much everything needs to be shipped to around the London. I do OK locally tho for things always in demand such as tables, but again, the houses where they go to are just super posh and there aren't as many of them here as near London.

As someone else said, if you lived further south it's very likely you couldn't cover your costs at all. If you are already building up an order book out of your area then again you seem to be doing very, very well, on-line marketing of higher value items can't be easy and you have even more competition selling on-line.
Outsourcing some of the component build process is not a silly idea, it would be nice if you do this locally, which would allow you to keep the .made in UK' and possibly 'hand made' aspect of your products. However if one of your main selling points is very high quality then by outsourcing too much you may struggle to maintain this aspect, esp if you offshore if as getting issues fixed becomes very hard and time consuming.

If you are building standard items to different dimensions then you still have the ability to batch produce the components that don't change in size.
You don't seem have shared your website, I'm quite curious now but understand if you don't want to open that up to 'review' from this group.

 

[custard]

I took up amateur woodwork/turning after taking early retirement. Having previously been an accountant I did idly wonder whether there might be a living to be made out of a hobby. After idly wondering I came to the conclusion that there were two ways:

- very high end, high quality, high prices. This route requires real design ability, craftsmanship and access to the right markets which may anyway take 5 - 15 years to develop as a business (if you have the skills)

- products with a wider market appeal - lower prices, higher volumes. To stand a chance of being competitive you need the right machinery, a production line approach to manufacture, sourcing materials by the cu. metre, etc. As a one man band trying to do everything - production, sales, administration, purchasing, cash collection, accounting etc - it is very hard work. If you employ people you have added issues with recruitment, training, insurance, sickness cover etc etc. Pricing will nearly always be compared to the mass market (think Ikea etc) where costs are low due to high volumes, multi £m investment in plant and/or cheap far east labour rates.

I came to the conclusion that I was lacking the skill and dedication for the former. The latter involves running a business in which the products, materials and processes are subordinate to money and efficiency - I spent 40 years doing this and it would not be a fun hobby.

You may, I hope, strike lucky and find a product niche in which you develop real expertise, too small or specialist for other companies to think worth competing. Starting with some knowledge of running a small business and woodworking obviously helps compared to a "blank sheet". But most products are easily copied and often improved by others - the is where a lot of our inspiration comes from.

You make some good points Terry. I'd like to expand on a couple of them.

In reality I doubt there is much correlation between pure furniture making skill and income. I know some makers that don't have my skill levels but probably earn a bit more than I do, and likewise I know makers that have higher skills than me but probably earn a bit less. Indeed there's one maker who is quite well known in the business as being exceptionally skilled (most makers would put him high amongst the top ten in the UK) but has faced a lifetime struggling to just stay afloat, enduring huge hardships along the way. For the most part however furniture makers seem squeezed into a relatively consistent earnings band no matter what their skills are.

You can divide furniture making into three broad skill levels, and achieving the first level isn't actually all that difficult. I'd guess at 1000 to 2000 hours of training would get you to the stage where you could make most rectilinear pieces to a decent standard. At this level you could for example make pretty much an entire household of Shaker style furniture. Toss in some decent machinery to speed things up, some passable design skills, and a slick sales & marketing approach, and you're off to the races. Many would ask, is more skill than that cost effective or necessary? The second skill level adds in the ability to make veneered, laminated, curved work, or jointed chairs, this would correspond to the roughly 10-12000 hours of a traditional apprenticeship and sets you up to make pretty much any piece of furniture you care to mention. The third level is genuine master work, having the skills to devise the fiendishly complex jigs and multi-stage processes required to make genuinely innovative pieces of furniture to museum or Guild Mark standards. There was a brief period from maybe 1985 to 2007 when skill level three seemed the way to go, because a small number of furniture pieces were smashing through previous price ceilings to achieve hitherto unimagined prices. Indeed contemporary furniture was starting to be judged as artworks or future important antiques. In the UK John Makepeace's "Millennium Chair" was pivotal in that movement when it sold to (I think) a Chicago museum and a second version was immediately made for a private collector for (I think again!) £60,000. A lot of makers suddenly decided, that's the way forward. Make extraordinary pieces, get an agent, and sell for breathtaking prices to a tiny elite of museums and ultra wealthy collectors. But with the 2007/8 crash that market pretty much collapsed. Furthermore, even in the US, which seems a bit further forward in terms of economic recovery, it's never really come back. I've no idea why this is the case, but when I talk to people who were genuine players at this level that's the message I consistently hear.

The second important issue you raise is design. And I think this is so critical it deserves a thread to itself. The fact is, if there's little correlation between furniture making skill and income, then there is even less correlation between furniture making skill and design skill! Yet design skill is the only scaleable element in the mix, and ultimately is what consumers are really willing to pay for. The problem though for furniture makers (as you hinted at) is that there is very little protection in law for furniture design, and enforcing that limited protection is both expensive and protracted. In reality the most talented furniture designers quickly figure this out for themselves and decide to either sub contract making entirely and concentrate on design, or sell their design talents directly to the big manufacturers. I've always thought it telling that the highest accolade in UK furniture making is a bespoke Guild Mark, but that's awarded to the designer and the actual maker doesn't get a single mention anywhere on the documentation!

Net all this out and I come back to what I said earlier, the great majority of makers are earning an annual gross contribution (i.e. before fixed overheads) of £15,000 to £25,000. And it would be a very brave or foolish person who set themselves up, purely as a maker of bespoke domestic furniture, with the expectation of breaking out above this range. In other words, these modest financials either work for you or they don't, and if they don't then you need to find another plan because even though it's not impossible that you'll be the exception, it's highly unlikely.