Beds and Bargins

I love simple, clean design that shows a quality of craftsmanship. The quality of the handcraft is always important to me because in our mass manufacturing age, we tend to value quantity and price over skill and service. When I make a long-term purchase (like furniture), I seek to find designs that not only appeal to me aesthetically, but also ensure a quality that will endure. I find defects like unintentionally exposed molding seams to be down right upsetting. Fortunately, you don't always have to pay exorbitant amounts of money for well crafted, well designed, attractive objects.

Charles P. Rogers, the furniture company, is an example of these qualities: well crafted, well designed, attractive, and affordable. Here's an example of the joinery on one of their beds:

©Charles P. Rogers 2009

Too many manufacturers of consumer goods fail to take the time to put in the small details, like the example here of matching the grains and mating them correctly. It might seem like a small detail, and it is, but when every detail is achieved with the same level of care, the finished product is vastly more pleasing (and usually, far more enduring).

Of course, most consumers now are more concerned with paying less for more, rather than paying more for less - and who can blame them? I suppose it is my small hope that this economic downturn will make us recognize the value in something that lasts rather than something that is cheap.

Here is the finished product in its entirety - the Alden bed by Charles P. Rogers.

©Charles P. Rogers 2009