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Arrister Aims to Bring Custom-Sized Furniture to the Masses

The Parsonal Line is Made-to-Measure

By Rain Noe - March 19, 2015

in Furniture Design | Crowdfunding

Truly bespoke furniture is expensive, as it should be. If an experienced master craftsperson is going to put in the days of labor, not to mention the back-and-forth with you to settle upon a custom solution you're happy with, the cost creeping into four and five figures is understandable.

However, the folks out of Nashville-based Arrister are betting that there's a market above the big-box stores and below true bespoke: Someone who needs, for instance, a simple rectilinear table of custom dimensions—precisely sized in length and width to fit into a nook particular to their house, for instance, or of a particular height to properly suit tall or short people.

Thus they've launched a Kickstarter for their Parsonal project, which aims to provide furniture of predetermined designs, but made-to-measure.

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I should point out that while the campaign states that "Each furniture piece is hand crafted in Nashville, Tennessee using Appalachian timber" and "you won't find MDF or particle board here," which is commendable, that doesn't mean there is no engineered wood involved; the woodniks among you are probably wondering how they could pull off a captured frame for the top, given that there aren't breadboard ends to compensate for wood movement, and the team told us that the tops are made of "a high quality hardwood ply (B/BB Baltic birch)."

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I think the concept is sound and that the web interface shown in the video, with the adjustable sliders and such, is well-conceived; additionally, the team is looking for a relatively small amount—just $36,000—so I was surprised to see that at press time, they were underfunded by more than 50%, with less than $14,000 pledged and a mere 16 days to go.

So, feedback time: As we've all seen Kickstarters asking more hit the goal much faster than this, what do you fellow designers feel is the culprit? I suspect that the individual price points may be too high for objects with a relatively Ikea-esque aesthetic, see photos and numbers below:

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Do you think the market's not ready for something like this, or is it something else? Very curious to get the readership's feedback here.

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John Kestner

9 years ago

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Late to the party here. I think that the other commenters touch on it: designer furniture is not an impulse buy, and Ikea sets a low bar for cost. But those are just constraints they could design around. Kickstarter is about buying an idea as much as the product — do that, and you'll create enough object lust to make people buy in.

In this case, I think the design is, superficially, too similar to the IKEA Lack. For that price, you want to have a design that has more of a craftsman's touch, even just some routed details. But more importantly, if your big selling point is infinite customizability, then you're designing the experience of customization as much as the table itself. That should be more visually apparent, in the campaign and the product. The GIF of the tool that lets you size a table for the room was a start. But not quite exciting enough. What if you could just take a photo and it'd figure it out? How about a motif on the table legs and top that points to its nature, like a ruler or grid or draftsman marks?

Or a user-provided component that truly makes it their own. For a customizable object, it's pretty dry. It could just be that matching the exact dimensions of that space between your couch and the wall is not the kind of customization that people are demanding.

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marc b

9 years ago

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The contrasting colors aren't doing it for me, but if I was in the market for a dining or coffee table, theirs would be in the running at those prices.

I think that part of the problem might be that furniture isn't really an impulse buy in the way that so many Kickstarter projects are. But I wish them luck- it's good to see domestically-made furniture for sensible money.

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- Sabine Hoffmann
  
  marc b
  
  9 years ago
  
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  you are right.
  i would say the same!
  
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Spencer Nugent

9 years ago

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I think people are just cheap -- maybe cheap is too strong a word but I think there's a lack of understanding of what goes into making quality furniture. I've made custom pieces for clients that cost thousands of dollars and will last a lifetime and those clients love their furniture. However, there's always a look of shock after the initial design review and budget is then discussed. IKEA and other low cost furniture stores and manufacturers that deliver on looks but lack quality have set an expectation for pricing that is hard to compete with when the person buying the furniture doesn't care for something that will last a lifetime.

I like the concept of the kickstarter and he simplicity of the pieces but I think that while the prices do reflect, in my opinion based on the description of materials, the cost of materials, that most people won't get why t costs as much as it does because of the simple design

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