A few years ago, I was working on a project (a tech company's HQ) at work (an office furniture dealer). Rather than specifying everything ourselves, we were told to work with a fashionable commercial interior design firm who was going to take their first pass at specifying the furniture, and then we were going to have to source it, have it custom-made, or find a way to get the same 'feel' with value-friendly options.
What was hilarious, was how many items they picked that didn't even actually exist besides. Several were one-off student projects, some were even just computer renders of not-real items in one of those "Top 10 coolest stools" lists. Once we totaled up all of the stuff we COULD buy, we were like 5x the budget so we then had to go back and value-engineer almost everything these interior designers (who aren't furniture experts....we were) picked.
One of the side tables that these designers specified was this:
If I remember right, after currency conversion, this side table (about 13" cube) would have been just under $2,000.
That's right. TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS.
I read the description on the website, and it was said that it was made from reclaimed pine, and left-over screen-printing dyes.
Today on the site, we're featuring Swedish designer Erik Olovsson, who's debuting in Milan this week a collection of stools made from slatted pine and treated with various hues and patterns of screen-print dye. Olovsson's been documenting his experiments in color-treated on Instagram with the...
www.sightunseen.com
This...this table offended me.
I challenged myself to build the one myself in 4 days, for $40.
It took me 5 days, but 1/2 of one day was spent driving to a lumber shop that sold old-growth pine thick enough. I ended up having top spend $80 on the wood, but it was enough to make two...so...I'm going to say I still "win". Ha!
Oh, I did have to buy a can of white spray paint, for like $4.00 more, and I used some 5/8" dowels I already had, at all of the joints.
I tried eye-balling the measurements, but I got the proportions a little off. I didn't plane my material thin enough, so mine looks a bit more "chunky". Also, having gotten my mits on one of his other tables, I can guarantee mine is stronger and will last longer because of my beefy doweled construction. My paint isn't as nice, because I was spray painting in the rain, under a piece of cardboard, on top of a trash can, in my windy back yard.
$2,000 (original) vs $40-ish (mine)
I would still never sell it or claim it's an original because I still do respect the art of design, etc...but I did show it to my clients who thoughts it was HILARIOUS because they knew how over-budget and without-a-clue those interior designers were.