Furniture maker advice for your designs

Take the time to find out how an expert like furniture maker David Emery can help you bring your dreams to life and make an impact on your home life.

How would you describe the sort of furniture you make?

It's always functional in that it's made in response to the need of a client. In design terms, the furniture is modern, with clean, crisp lines and little or no ornamentation. The result tends to combine the spare, pure lines of modernist furniture with the richness of the Art Deco style. 

Is it hard to combine furniture maker functionality with 'wow' factor?

I don't think so, but with us it tends to be a 'wow' factor that creeps up on you. In my furniture maker workshop we try hard to ensure that the client will gain pleasure from using the piece of furniture, not just from owning it. As a furniture maker we try to achieve a visual lightness, while retaining a sense of solidity in use.

What are your favourite materials and textures to work with?

It's combining different materials that really interests me. The furniture maker workshop skills are primarily in timber, particularly in the use of veneers, by which we avoid many of the limitations of solid timber. The timber is usually used in conjunction with other materials - glass, metals or painted surfaces.

Do you consult with clients to meet their needs?

Very much so. It would be short-sighted not to, and it would take away the most satisfying part of the whole process - the challenge of meeting the practical and aesthetic needs of the client. But I do assume that they have come to me because they like my work, so there is a workshop 'style'.

Can the work of a furniture maker be classified as art?

That's always a curly one. There are certainly furniture makers who think of themselves as artists, but for me art is about the expression of the artist's ideas, whereas my focus is more on the client. That doesn't mean a piece of furniture can't be beautiful, or give great pleasure to the user.

Are you a furniture maker other than for furniture for people's homes?

It's quite surprising when I reflect on some of the things we've been asked to do over the years, especially for clients with whom we have built a long-term relationship - everything from a small container to an entire Japanese-style room within a home. But fine joinery is always an element.

Contact a furniture maker like David Emery to find out how you can bring your furniture designs to life: