Do you want to know what’s the difference between custom-made, handmade, and made-to-order sofas? Quite surprising right, since whenever you read these words, they seem to deliver the exact same meaning to your mind and that is of “something specifically made”. It is due to different misleading marketing tactics that you’ve not clearly understood the difference between these furniture categories.
Worry not, because we, being the professionals at Wall Curtains, are going to explain to you the difference between them simply but understandably to help you learn these basic furniture concepts once and for all. Most furniture manufacturers have used these terms interchangeably which makes things confusing and can sometimes lead to wrong decisions, as well.
Therefore, we’ll explain to you that when these words are used in place of one another, they can completely change the meaning of the context and the type of furniture you’re talking about. Stay with us to let yourself be aware of the difference between them.
Different Furniture Terms Explained
To let you know, custom-made, handmade, and made-to-order sofas fall under completely different furniture categories and are crafted distinctively. You can understand these concepts with the help of a simple yet impactful example described below.
Consider a custom piece of furniture that is manufactured using the finest quality wood materials by a professional artisan. No doubt, the furniture item will be highly durable, extremely resilient, and attractive-looking. Plus, as it is customized, it will fulfill all your interior decor and space requirements as well.
Adding to your imagination, what gives this customized furniture item its value or worth, however, is definitely not its appearance or quality but the fact that an artist has made it specifically for a buyer. Thus, this piece of furniture can be custom-made, probably handmade, and can be prepared on an order (made-to-order).
And, for further illuminating this topic, we’ve explained below these furniture concepts/terms individually.
1. Handmade Sofa
Coming to the first category, we have handmade sofas. As the name suggests, these sofas are made by hand or are hand-processed. In other words, you can say that these sofas are built and assembled using one’s hand (craftsperson’s hand). This type of furniture is more valuable because of two basic reasons. First, more effort has been put into creating this sofa, as compared to a regular sofa construction. And second, each of these sofas is unique, meaning one-of-a-kind in the whole world.
In addition to this concept, the term handmade also applies to mass-produced furniture parts such as sofa backrest, seating, etc that are only assembled by hand. Also, such sofas add a lot of value to the interior because handmade furniture pieces are reduced only to a superficial stage in the production process, and are little to almost no longer found.
2. Custom Made Sofa
These are the sofas that are made to an individual’s specifications. Professional craftsmen manufacture these furniture pieces (sofas) according to each customer’s specifications, meaning you can give directions to the artisan on how to manufacture the different parts of your sofa.
Following this, you can decide on the type of material used, design, style, upholstery fabric, and many more aspects of your sofa. In addition, it will also be called a custom-made sofa, if you have decided on only one or two of the above-mentioned aspects. Hence, your customized sofa can reflect your personal preferences in color, style, design, shape, and many other features.
Considering this opportunity, manufacturers mass-produce furniture and incorporate their customer’s desired input (required style, shape, size, etc.) into the standard furniture design. This way, mass-production of furniture can also come at the expense of unique craftsmanship, thus stretching the meaning of the term “custom-made”. Besides, this type of specific furniture mass-production also places the furniture items in an affordable range.
3. Made-To-Order Sofa
This type of sofa is produced to supply a special or an individual’s demand, meaning only one or two aspects of the sofa are not decided by the customer but an order for the entire new piece of furniture (sofa) is placed. Hence, we can say that made-to-order sofa production begins only when a customer places an order for it.
Also, this type of sofa can’t be pre-made and is purely specific to details provided by the customers. To let you know, made-to-order sofas are exclusive furniture pieces and add luxury to the interior spaces. Most people buy made to order & custom furniture items to fulfill a specific set of interior requirements such as space, size, shape, etc.
At last, let’s talk about why these furniture crafting terms are mostly used interchangeably. The real reason is that all these furniture manufacturing processes often work in tandem, thus creating an overlap.
The Verdict
Here, we’ve explained to you the difference between different furniture terms and hope that you’ve understood them quite precisely. So as to keep in mind, next time when you shop for furniture products or place an order for a specific piece, you know exactly what you’re buying or ordering for. That’s because, with the change in the furniture term, you will not be able to attain your desired furniture product.