For those of you designer/builders new to the game, selling your first chair will be a wildly satisfying accomplishment. But if your client isn't local, preparing the piece for shipping presents a new challenge--one that, if done half-assed, can completely undo your success with creating and selling the furniture piece in the first place.

Lost Art Press' Christopher Schwarz has built and sold his share of chairs. And while the always-modest Schwarz prefaces the following information by stating that "I am not a cratengineer. So I am certain that the way you build crates is better than mine," it's safe to say the man's methods are probably better than most.

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As Schwarz explains:

My method is the result of a few things:

1. Observing how hundreds of shipments of books, machines and furniture have been damaged during my last three decades in publishing and furniture making (I have not experienced any damage with my crates, by the way).
2. Asking my trucking company what I should do to ensure my shipments aren't damaged.
3. Using as little material as possible to add as little weight and cubic footage as possible.
4. Setting a goal of building a crate in less than one hour.
5. Spending $40 to $50 on materials on average.

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Click here to read his full explanation, with photos, of his chair-crating method.