Hi Reader,
Last week we talked about the challenge of pricing out custom built-ins and how they’re inevitably more complicated than it seems.
But there’s another reason to think hard before you splurge on built-ins: they’re permanent.
That means you’d better be really confident that what you're putting in there is exactly what you want long-term, because it's very expensive to undo and redo again.
Case in point: We have a client who spent an exorbitant amount of money on a built-desk and a whole millwork wall for storage and display in their home office.
The desk was cantilevered out of the wall. They didn't want to have leg posts to encumber them, so we had to build a whole steel superstructure that went into the floor to support this cantilever desk.
10 years later, we got a call: “Gerald, we want to redo this room.”
The first thought in my mind was, Oh no.
I said, “Do you remember that desk that we put in? What's gonna happen to that?”
“Well, we don't want that desk because it's permanent. We want a desk that is movable."
Oh dear.
“Well, unfortunately, you're gonna have to bring in a welder with cutting torches to get that desk out.”
Silence, then — “Really?!?”
“Yeah. Because it goes under the floor.”
In the end, $8k worth of steel superstructure went into the scrap bin only 10 years after being built, because it never worked to begin with. Yikes.
While you might not be scrapping an $8k custom desk, the principle still applies:
Think long and hard about the permanency of building something in a very specific way, when you may not really even know that is what you want.
Built-ins and other custom millwork fill your space and look pretty. But please resist the urge to start there!
Don’t be afraid to start with something cheap and cheerful to see how it works. Once you have a sense of how you actually use the space, then you can upgrade to a custom solution.
Function first. Then form (AKA the pretty stuff). ALWAYS.
Till next time,
Gerald