How to run a sustainable furniture business

Sustainability should be an essential part of any business plan. With the ongoing climate emergency, woodworkers and furniture makers should be joining in the collective effort to go greener – but sustainability is also about creating a business that will last while benefitting its community, staff and customers.   

Jamie Wemyss is a former Chippendale School student, and since graduating he has created JMW Furniture, a successful business with sustainability at its heart. We spoke to Jamie to find out how aspiring woodworkers and furniture business owners can craft the most sustainable business model. 

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Spalted console

A simple fact about bespoke furniture is that good design sells.

That’s a lesson that Fiona Gilfillan, one of recent professional course graduates has learned.

During her course, she made a spalted Sycamore and Elm console table, which sold at the graduate exhibition.

She was then commissioned by another customer to make a second console table.

Now she’s just completing a third, making her something of a console queen.

Fiona was the second student on our newly-introduced month-long intermediate course last year.

FeeMade

Then, despite not initially intending to make woodworking her life, she enrolled on our 2018/19 professional course.

Fiona is now setting up FeeMade from incubation space at the school.

Those spaces, Myreside Studios, are one of the ways we try to help graduates in their early careers.

Because we don’t believe that education and support should end when our students graduate.

Instead, in a more holistic approach, our Myreside Studios allow graduates to set themselves up in business from the school’s campus.

We give them good working space and full access to equipment and machinery.

They also have continued help from our tutors, so that they don’t have to feel isolated.

Myreside Studios

That’s important because our students build up close working relationships with other students, with everyone learning from each other.

Myreside Studios allow those working relationships to extend into professional life so that, in a very real sense, the school is a community of students and professional woodworkers.

Fiona also has one other claim to Chippendale woodworking fame.

She first came to us on a one-week introductory course, making her the only person to have completed all three of our courses.

Fiona is gifted and hard-working and we’re hugely pleased that she’s staying on at the school.

Note: Two places still remain for our professional course that starts next month.  More information here or contact us here.

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Brexit divides cabinet

Stephen Barr, one of our recent professional course graduates, first came to the school on a one-week introductory course.

It’s a good way for potential professional woodworkers to see if they really do have sawdust in their veins.

And if they do, and enrol onto our professional course, the introductory course fees are deducted.

It’s a route into woodworking that several professional course students have taken, having proved to themselves that woodworking is the career for them.

For Stephen, originally from Northern Ireland but now living in Edinburgh, it was a bold change of professional direction.

His previous career was in IT consultancy, with his own company, which he sold.

Stephen Barr Brexit Chippendale furniture school

Stephen’s stand-out piece, for which he won this year’s Richard Demarco Prize, was a humorous statement on the vexed question of Brexit.

His “Strong and Stable Brexit Cabinet” was just as divided as the country on the issue.

EU stars

His two-door cabinet in Walnut and Japanese Ash depicted the Union Jack on one door, and the EU’s stars on the other.

Also, one of the EU’s stars was missing…a visual quip about the UK’s intention to (maybe) leave the EU.

In our experience, furniture sells when it’s well-made and carries a design that turns it into a talking point.

Not only was Stephen’s cabinet extremely well made but his fun design gave it topical appeal.

In the run-up to the school’s graduation exhibition, several newspapers – including The Times – carried stories about his cabinet.

At the exhibition itself he was awarded The Richard Demarco Prize 2019.

Demarco

This annual prize is awarded by Professor Richard Demarco CBE, one of the UK’s leading arts commentators.

Professor Demarco’s prize is awarded to the student whose work not only displays design and woodworking skill but exceptional artistic talent.

Stephen is now setting up Starship Unicorn Furniture from incubation space at the school.

These spaces, Myreside Studios, are another good reason to study at the Chippendale school.

They allow graduates to immediately set up in business and make full use of the school’s equipment and machinery.

They also still have tutor support in case of difficulty in those important early months.

It’s all part of the school’s holistic approach to teaching woodworking and helping our students post-graduation.

Note: Two places still remain unfilled on our professional course 2019/20, which starts next month.  More information here or contact us here.

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Finding inspiration

Inspiration is something that we can all struggle with, and sometimes we find it in unusual places.

The lesson is that, wherever you find inspiration, grab it with both hands.

That was true of recent professional course graduate Tom Smyth from Bristol whose previous job was on a community farm in Somerset.

Tom knew that furniture making was for him having already undertaken evening classes in woodworking – and realising how much he enjoyed it.

Tom’s simple philosophy was that he enjoys making things, and he wanted a new career doing just that.

His stand-out piece during the course was a monumental garden seat, inspired by work he carried out on the roof of a listed 400-year-old timber framed barn in Hampshire.

Symphony

OK, it’s may seem a strange link, but you have to take inspiration wherever you find it.

His seat was a symphony in majestic steam-bending, and held together using only pegged mortice and tenon joints.

Tom’s approach was to take a straightforward garden bench design, but make it bigger and more striking.

It was therefore a design that took the ordinary and transformed it into something special.

No wonder that his bench was snapped up by an eager buyer at our graduate exhibition.

Tom Smyth Chippendale furniture school

Tom’s second piece was a lovely plant stand cabinet made from lustrous Lime.

But, finding inspiration from a completely different source, the top of the piece was delicately carved and gilded with yellow gold in a pattern that echoed the Buddhist tree of life.

It comprised a series of vases or containers, with plants spilling out, decorated with colours found on Buddhist prayer flags.

Tom’s finished collection also comprised a Sycamore lampstand and Sycamore baker’s block with granite top.

We’re pleased that he’s found work with Allangrange Furniture Restoration, run by our first ever student, Jayjay Gladwin.

 

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