Commissioning a piece/10 min read
How commissioning custom furniture actually works
A commission runs through 6 stages and takes 8 to 16 weeks. Most delays happen at stage 3, and they are almost always caused by a decision the customer has not made yet.
Ready to price something specific? See dining tables in Adelaide or custom joinery in Adelaide.
Commissioning custom furniture in Adelaide runs through 6 stages: enquiry and brief, measure, design and material selection, deposit and order, build, then delivery and install. Start to finish it takes 8 to 16 weeks depending on the piece and on the queue in front of it. Only 2 of those stages need much from you, and both sit inside the first fortnight.
The 6 stages, and how long each one takes
| Stage | What happens | Who drives it | Elapsed time | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1. Enquiry and brief | You describe the piece, the room, the budget range and the date | You | 1 to 3 days | | 2. Measure | A site measure, or you supply confirmed dimensions | Maker, or you | 3 to 10 days | | 3. Design and material selection | Sketch or elevation, species, finish, hardware, then a firm quote | Both | 1 to 3 weeks | | 4. Deposit and order | 40% to 50% paid, timber ordered, your slot booked | You | 1 to 5 days | | 5. Build | Milling, joinery, assembly, sanding, 3 to 5 coats of finish | Maker | 2 to 8 weeks at the bench | | 6. Delivery and install | Delivered, levelled or fixed, balance paid | Maker | 1 day freestanding, 2 to 3 days fitted |
Those numbers do not add to 16 weeks, and the gap is the point. Between stage 4 and stage 5 sits queue time: the weeks your job waits while the workshop finishes the jobs booked ahead of it. That queue is usually longer than the build itself, which is covered properly in how long custom furniture takes in Adelaide.
Stages 1 and 2: the brief and the measure
The brief
A maker cannot quote from "a dining table, oak, nice one". They can quote from a paragraph that names the piece, a rough size or the room size, a budget range, a date and any hard constraint such as matching existing joinery. That is a 5 minute job on your end and it is the difference between a firm number and a fortnight of back and forth. There is a copyable template in how to brief a furniture maker.
Send photos of the room. Not styled photos: 3 or 4 plain shots showing the walls, the floor, the window and whatever the new piece has to sit next to. A maker reads more from those than from a description.
The measure
Freestanding pieces usually do not need a site measure. You supply the dimensions and the maker builds to them, which puts the accuracy on you: for a dining table the clearance rules in how to measure for a custom dining table decide the answer, and they are not what most sizing guides say. Fitted work always needs a site measure, and in Adelaide it needs a careful one. A pre-1940 villa or bungalow will have walls out of square by 10mm to 40mm across a 3m opening, deep skirtings, a picture rail and often a chimney breast in the middle of the wall you want filled. Every one of those has to be scribed around, and none of it can be guessed from a photo.
The site measure is also where problems surface. A floor that falls 25mm across a room, a wall with no stud where a wardrobe rail needs one, a meter box behind the proposed cabinet. Finding those at stage 2 costs nothing. Finding them at stage 6 costs a rebuild.
Stage 3: design and material selection, where jobs stall
This is the stage that decides whether your piece arrives on time, and it is the only stage where the delay is genuinely in your hands.
The maker produces a drawing and a specification. You approve it. In practice, the drawing comes back inside a week and then sits waiting because the customer has not decided between Tasmanian oak and blackwood, or between a hardwax oil and a lacquer. Every week that sits unresolved is a week the maker cannot order timber, and a week your slot in the queue drifts.
The 2 decisions that cause it are worth making before you ever ask for a drawing:
- Species. This moves the quote more than size does. Tasmanian oak is the baseline. American oak sits 15% to 25% above it, blackwood 35% to 55% above, and river red gum or figured stock 60% to 120% above. Choose the band first and the exact board later.
- Finish. A hardwax oil is repairable at home in 10 minutes and needs re-coating every 12 to 24 months on a dining table. A catalysed lacquer resists far more and cannot be spot repaired at all. The finishes guide sets the 5 options side by side.
Ask for physical samples. Photographs of timber are close to useless, because every species darkens differently under a finish and blackwood in particular changes noticeably in its first year. A maker will hand you offcuts, half-oiled, for free.
Everything else at this stage is genuinely the maker's job. You do not need to specify joinery, hardware brands, top thickness or how the top is fixed. You do need to read what they have specified and ask about anything you do not recognise.
Stages 4 and 5: deposit, order and build
The deposit is 40% to 50% at order and it is not a red flag. Hardwood is bought rough-sawn in advance, and 30% to 40% of every board is lost to machining, defect and offcuts. That money leaves the workshop months before your balance arrives.
What the deposit should buy you in writing: your timber ordered, your slot in the queue booked with a nominated delivery window, and the specification locked. Once it is paid, changes cost money. A species change after the timber is bought is a new order, not an amendment.
Build time runs 2 to 8 weeks depending on the piece. Milling and dressing, then joinery, then dry assembly, then glue-up, then sanding through 3 or 4 grits, then 3 to 5 coats of finish with cure time between each. Finishing is slower than people expect and it is slower again in an Adelaide winter, when a workshop under 15 degrees can double the cure time between coats.
Expect 1 or 2 photo updates during the build. Expect to be asked to approve the timber layout on a wide top, because grain matching across a 1,000mm width is a judgement call and a good maker will want your eyes on it.
Stage 6: delivery and install
Freestanding delivery is a single visit. 2 people, a blanket, and a check that the piece sits level on your floor. Adelaide floors in older houses rarely are, and a good maker adjusts feet on site rather than leaving you to wedge it.
Fitted work is 1 to 3 days on site: carcases in, scribed and fixed, doors hung and adjusted, then the final trim. The balance is due on completion, and you should walk the job before you pay it.
Access is the thing that ruins delivery day, and it is checked at stage 1 or not at all. A 2,400mm solid top weighs 60kg to 90kg and will not turn on a villa staircase or pass an 820mm door on the diagonal. Measure the narrowest point on the route, including the stair turn and the gate, and put the number in your first email.
What a quote document must contain
Anything less than this is not a quote, it is an estimate with a dollar sign on it.
- The species, and whether the top is solid or veneered
- Finished dimensions, including top thickness in millimetres
- How the top is fixed to the base, with the word "movement" appearing somewhere
- The finish product by name and the number of coats
- Hardware by brand and grade, if the piece has drawers or doors
- Deposit amount, balance timing and what happens if the date moves
- A delivery window with a date range, not the word "soon"
- What the warranty covers, and specifically whether it covers movement
- Whether delivery, install and rubbish removal are included
If 2 quotes are far apart, the difference is almost always in the first 2 lines. Species and solid-versus-veneered account for most large gaps, and neither is visible on delivery day.
If the date slips
Some slips are legitimate. Timber supply is the most common: Tasmanian oak and Victorian ash come through the eastern states, and a grade shortfall on a delivered pack can cost 2 to 3 weeks. A site measure that finds a structural problem is legitimate. So is a decision you made late.
What is not legitimate is silence. Ask for the revised date in writing and the reason with it. Australian Consumer Law consumer guarantees apply to services supplied to consumers, including that they be supplied within a reasonable time when no time is agreed, which is a good reason to agree a time in the first place. The ACCC publishes plain-language guidance on what those guarantees cover.
Practically: a 1 to 2 week slip on a 12 week job is normal. Build a 3 week buffer into any hard deadline and do not tell the maker the buffer exists.
Where to start
If you have not picked a maker yet, do that before anything else, because furniture making is not a licensed trade in South Australia and there is no register to check anyone against. If you have a piece in mind, custom dining tables and custom joinery carry the sizing and pricing detail for the 2 most commonly commissioned categories.
We match Adelaide enquiries to independent makers who build that specific kind of piece. It is free to use, and the makers we refer have a current ABN, current public liability insurance and a portfolio of completed Adelaide work before we pass anything to them.