Money in Woodworking?

[Kyle Iwamoto]

I don't believe there is any sense in doing what you love. I think the wisest path is to love what you do.

Huh? I do what I love. I does not pay the bills, but I still do it.

[Calvin Williams]

Develop proprietary designs and skills. This makes lateral price/value comparisons impossible for clients, but if all you do is crank out plywood boxes, well, that's not proprietary work. Read "Marketing To the Aflluent" by Dan Kennedy.

Thank you.... I will read that ASAP!!!!

[Calvin Williams]

I don't believe there is any sense in doing what you love. I think the wisest path is to love what you do.

Can you not do both? I definitely "love what I do" and at the same time "I do what I love". Does that make sense? Lol

[Ryan Mooney]

And its gotten more difficult, next to impossible, to complete (price and quality) with both the the cabinet factorys and the guy with no insurance, working on the side, out of his garage.

Not too many potential clients are sold on longevity anymore.

This is what amazes me when I see so many folks saying that cabinets pays the bills. I'm not disputing your truthiness but its somewhat surprising when you see cabinets in HD or Ikea for less than the cost of parts for a decent piece (not disputing the quality difference either, but it seems that the number of folks who have any idea about that is in serious decline as well). Is most of the business to upscale custom fit jobs?

It also seems to me that it might actually be harder to make a living at the fancy furniture (or similar) side if you have to. I think there are a couple of problems that you run into here:

• if you need to pay the bills you get pulled into things that pay the bills and its hard to have a spec piece sitting for a long time with no dollars off of it.
• Its difficult to develop a "brand" if you are in multiple market segments. The most extreme example of this would be someone who sells 2x4 furniture at the swap meat and is also trying to get into high end custom work - image does sell somewhat.

OTOH if you have the luxury of not immediately requiring to make a living (and wouldn't that be nice ) you have the ability to spend the time to pursue the higher end product lines. Of course as others have noted there is still no guarantee that you would succeed.

[Keith Hankins]

Very interesting thread. I too would have loved to made my living doing woodwork. In my younger years, I did a lot of side jobs working with wood but my main career (IT) paid the bills. For a short time in my early career, I did some production work that was getting very profitable, but it was so much different doing it in a production environment. It was great easy money, but I began to hate the thought of doing it. I even stopped woodworking for a short while.

Now, I'm winding down a long career in IT and have been making a quite a few pieces, and by word of mouth, and repeat customers have been building about a years worth of work at the moment.

I've poured all my profits back into the shop and it is in pretty good shape, so from here on out (god willin) I can start really making some money. However I could not pay the bills though, so I will keep the regular job for another few years(4 till the last kid gets through college).

I recently had a client contact me about making some cabinets so may give it a whirl.

I say if you have the faith go for it. I some times regret not pursuing my woodworking passion.

[James Baker SD]

I guess what I am so curious about is how can someone not have a problem paying a roofing company to come out and roof their house in a day for $8-$10k but doesn't want to pay a man $1700 to build a 3'x7' island ... ;-)

I've been on both sides of this dilemma. I lost my engineering job (due to gross incompetence by upper management I may say :-) ) and thought I would try my hand at custom woodworking. Initially I took any client just to gain experience and hopefully reputation (maybe I did gain a reputation--for working cheap :-( ) . I had plenty of offers asking me to compete with or beat IKEA or Target knockdown furniture prices while using solid hardwood (like walnut or maple). The lack of knowledge these potential "customers" had was amazing. Bottom line was that the number of clients with deep pockets were few and their designers already had relationships with several really talented guys down here and there was no way to break into profitability in the time frame I had before me. After two years I had to give up my attempt (and dream to do what I loved) and look for work as an engineer again (although it left me with a really well equipped hobby shop).

Just before the layoff (which caught me by surprise) my roof started to leak and stain the interior ceiling. I also got quotes from two custom shops for a built in bookcase covering an entire wall of the living room. After the layoff, the roof was still leaking and I found the money to pay somebody to put a new roof on. I felt it was a necessity that could not be avoided. The bookcase of course got cancelled, definitely a luxury. It is now on my list of things to do someday when I have the time. Maybe I gained enough experience in those 2 years as a " pro" to pull off the bookcase, but it is still a luxury.

[Loren Woirhaye]

You must be seriously committed to prosper in an artisan business. Read up on Frank Pollaro and consider the quality of work he and his people do, who their clients are and why. They are not messing around.

[Loren Woirhaye]

Also, if it doesn't seem too dull, consider production turning.

Me, I'm not very good at turning but I want to improve after I get marquetry down. I'm getting comfortable with steam bending, which makes it efficient and cheap for me to produce the curved parts which, when incorporated in decent designs and finished well, impress consumers.

I'm talking about money skills. Joinery is not, really. Dovetails and all that are a "ho-hum" to clients mostly. Sure, they like them if they can get something cool at a bargain price, but in terms of ascending in the marketplace, higher end buyers don't care about joinery mostly. They want "clean". They care about design flourish, finish, details, and the promise of quality.

Doing good joinery is something you should do on principle. Let people know, sure, but be awesome in all other areas as well. With CNC and all that now, there's not much point in trying to build a solo career as a panel processor. It can be done with a quarter million bucks of machinery for sure, but the question is whether you have the marketing mojo to compete at the commercial laminate (3mm edgeband) cabinet level. Read Woodweb.

[Moses Yoder]

Huh? I do what I love. I does not pay the bills, but I still do it.

Okay. A guy has this romantic notion of a quiet morning with a cup of coffee before starting the day building a custom one off wood furniture piece in his shop to make his living. The morning is peaceful, the day idyllic, fitting one piece at a time lovingly into the work of art, carefully choosing grain. This is Jim Krenov; every woodworker wants this I think. Doing what you love. The reality is far different, far far different. Jim Krenov was supported by his wife for many years before he finally became popular enough to make a living. Most woodworkers who start down this path fail in a couple years; millions of them have tried it, I am one of them. Life is far better if you simply choose to love what you do, whether that is production woodworking or being a roofer or managing an IT system or being an engineer or whatever. Keep a list of the pros and cons about your job, a spreadsheet, and really try to focus on the pros each day; write down something that happens every day pro or con, try to make it pro, and see what happens. This is a major attitude shift for most people.

[Tai Fu]

I don't know if there's any Christians here, but I'm under the belief that God is good and not to worry, since he takes care of his children.

Religious stuff aside, if you really think about it there's no easy lunch no matter the field you choose. Of course it also comes with deciding how much is enough for you. If living in an expensive place and having a lavish lifestyle is what you want out of life, then you'd want to do whatever it takes to make the most money possible, then you'd want to be someone who starts and sustains a large business. But then again you need a large capital to begin with and if you don't have it, you'd have to play around with Wall Street (ie. convince investors to invest in you) to get that. You can become a doctor or lawyer, but being a doctor means getting good grade to begin with, and spending close to a decade in medical related studies. Honestly doctors don't make as much as you think, when you account for malpractice insurance, taxes, etc.. Good lawyers make a lot of money, but there are a TON of average lawyers making not a whole lot. On top of that you'd have to go to law school too!

What you really don't want to do is take a job you hate, and end up hating life even if you made some money. I have a customer like that and he's wanting to change his career because of that. Then there's also the skills and background that you've spent half your life getting, so basically you don't really want to spend another decade training to do the job you hate, make some money so you can do more of the things you hate. It is probably better to do something that you love, but more importantly you must be good at whatever it is you're doing. It not only builds confidence (which makes people want to trust you with businesses) but it also sets you above those others with limited skills. Sometimes you'll have to stick to it even if it looks bad. Living frugally isn't difficult and it's a very good skill to have. It reduces your dependence on a high paying job (meaning less dependence on "the man" and spending half your life hating it), it also frees you to doing stuff that you're good at but aren't paying too well at the moment.

So yea, in all trades to make a small fortune, you have to start with a bigger one. But I suspect most people fail not because they failed, but because they gave up too early. Once you're committed, you should not give up. The time to give up is before you committed yourself.

[Jim Matthews]

I recommend that you make a few pieces for demonstration purposes, using reasonably priced lumber.

The focus should be on something only you can provide, rather than copies.
Simplify to the point you can repeat the process and offer variations at additional cost.

My mentor has started a similar sideline, and it is JUST starting to produce sales after two years.
You've got to have something made, to display it. Finding a place to show it is essential.

If there are flower shows, interior decorating displays or any other home fixture expos - get your product on the floor
as a part of some other small purveyor's offerings.

http://dansocha.com/

[Paul Murphy]

Develop proprietary designs and skills. This makes lateral price/value comparisons impossible for clients, but if all you do is crank out plywood boxes, well, that's not proprietary work. Read "Marketing To the Aflluent" by Dan Kennedy.

This is good advise, and along these lines you have to get to know your market area. For you to market locally to the "Aflluent", they have to actually live within your marketing reach. A casual observation is that many of the long term surviving custom furniture makers exist in areas where the well-to-do reside, or have a "summer home". One such example is Maine, with the thirty-fourth highest per capita income in the United States, and a large number of "summer homes" owned by wealthy families.

Kind of difficult to market to the truly aflluent, if in fact you don't actually live anywhere near the sphere of their existence. I think this is the one aspect you cannot kid yourself about, you are not likely to sell much custom furniture to the middle class.

[Tai Fu]

By the way I don't see how roofing is unrelated to woodworking. Granted you're up on the roof doing construction work, but by doing roofing you still maintain your general woodworking skills.

[Judson Green]

Tai Fu brings up a good point. There's many, many categories to what we call woodworking and specialists within a category.

A carpenter who specializes in complicated roofs, set building - theatrical, chair makers, boat builders, outfitting private jets, model makers, cabinetmakers specializing in liturgical work, millwork - just molding....

[Ryan Mooney]

I think this is the one aspect you cannot kid yourself about, you are not likely to sell much custom furniture to the middle class.

That's the essence of my question/point for the folks doing mostly cabinet work as to where their market actually landed. My naive guess is that its somewhere from the upper end of upper middle class and up from there. For foine furniture I suspect that the baseline is perhaps a bit higher on average.