In this corner we have IKEA coming in with butts joints at 79.99 and in the other corner we have Ron coming in with dovtails and $404.00??  Huh?? 

I am often approached by friends and clients who mention “you can build that blah blah cheaper than that can’t you?”  It’s now been 3 years and to date I have yet to be able to build anything cheaper than I can find at a local furniture store, Lowes, Home Depot, IKEA…. I have been close in some cases but never cheaper.   With that in mind I thought it might be fun to break down typical costs on a selected item between myself and IKEA .

Below is an average two drawer unit from IKEA with a price of 79.99.  The product information is listed below and was taking from the IKEA USA website.

 Product information

 79.99???  WOW! Ok now that I have a list of specs and details let me try and match that price. First up Materials.

Materials

 $184???  Are you kidding!! We are just getting started!

 Labor at $40/hr

Isn’t it amazing how quickly this stuff adds up?  Now for the comparison! 

What you get for 79.99 is a piece of functional furniture that would be great for that first apartment or dorm room. Measurements as shown and no option to go bigger, wider or deeper.  You get a piece of furniture that will be around for a couple of years until it makes sense to have what you really needed custom built:)

What you don’t get is an assembled piece of quality furniture constructed with quality materials and joinery designed to stand years of use.  So what really makes this a quality piece of furniture?  Well that’s another topic in and of itself which I will gladly get to in the near future! 

So who wins?  I guess that depends on the who you are and what you are doing but unfortunately most often IKEA:(

Veterans get Help

I am fortunate enough to receive a copy of the Phoenix Business Journal each week via my day job.  Now I don’t read the journal front to back but there is most always an article or topic I find helpful and/or interesting.  This week is no exception.

Being a veteran myself, I found a short article on the Patriot Loan Initiative interesting to say the least.  The initiative was introduced about 8 months ago by the US Small Business Association in efforts to aid veteran business owners with resources and capital to either start a new business or help grow an existing business.  For more information I have add a link below.

Patriot Loan Initiative  

Sorry for the delay in posts but the site has been under going some changes both in the blog and on the general site over the last couple weeks.  The blog is looking pretty good and with that in mind I should be able to start posting updates on the bookcase and other developments on the business front on a more regular basis:) 

Ok so so from a legal and administrative standpoint I was pretty much set up. The only problem I had now was that other than some miscellaneous hand and power tools I had no way to actually machine rough stock. I guess I could have had my local hardwood suppliers do this for me but this idea just wasn’t going to offer the flexibility I needed, besides I had a better idea!!

<sup>In my opinion, in order to start producing furniture efficiently I needed at least a table saw, jointer, plainer and band saw. I had a decent enough table saw so I just needed the other three. Now I am not saying that I couldn’t have accomplished the same thing with hand tools but I needed to hit the ground running so… off to Home Depot I drove. Obviously their Rigid line was not my 1st, 2nd, or 3rd choice however the ability to purchase $1,200 worth of equipment and take a year to pay for it made the deal pretty attractive So with that in mind, I was able to at least set up a shop with what I considered to be the basics and start making some money with very little out of pocket costs. A year later, all the equipment was paid for plus a lot of new equipment was purchased. So far I have pretty much reinvested everything back into the company although now I am able to have a little different view on the equipment I purchase. Cry once at the price or cry everytime you use it!

This may not work for everyone but so far it’s worked pretty well for me</sup>

It seems that a fairly common question I see in the wood working forums is in regard to starting a woodworking business. With that in mind I thought it only appropriate that my first blog entry discuss the process I have gone through to get where I am today.

I think it’s been a little over two years now since I decided I would rather work ten or twenty hours a week in my shop, as my own boss, than ten or twenty hours a week overtime at my day job where I was miserable and making someone else rich! It was time to take the hobby to the next level.

The first order of business was coming up with a name that wasn’t taking by a fellow woodworker. A part of this process involved a visit to the State of Arizona’s Corporation Commission’s website to confirm that indeed the name I had chosen wasn’t already being used by a fellow woodworker. A quick search let me know I was cleared for take off!

Ok so now I had a name so the next step was to research the type of business entity I wanted to create. Would it be a sole proprietorship, an LLC a corporation? If you have even the slightest question this would be a great time to consult an attorney and/or a CPA. Most small businesses lean towards setting up an LLC for liability reasons; however there are financial and tax reporting considerations to take into account as well. Based on my needs and goals I decided to set up an LLC. Now I had all the required information to complete and submit the required articles of incorporation documentation.

Once the articles of incorporation had been approved I was required to publish this information in a local news paper within 30-45 days of approval. The “articles of incorporation” approval is really a significant milestone in the creation of your business. Now that this had been approved, I apply for my employer tax identification number (EIN), local business licenses and set up a bank account.

I should probably back up a bit here though and mention that the steps I just mentioned are most likely more applicable to an LLC than a sole proprietorship and are based on my experiences over two years ago and may changed. In addition, I would also suggest checking with your HOA and/or local planning and zoning department to make sure that all that hard work won’t go to waste when your neighbor complains and you get shut down. Something else to consider is how your homeowner’s policy could be affected? Some policy’s become null and void once you are running a home based business.

All that and I never cut a board and never made a penny!

Heck, this is only a start really and in a later discussion I will go over outfitting the shop for nothing (sort of), liability insurance and business plans.

Getting Started Links

Small Business Administration

Filing Fees

Arizona Corporation Commission Filing Forms

Well I guess it’s been sometime coming and finally I have been able to find a couple spare minutes to start a blog. With any luck I will be able to devote a couple minutes to maybe an hour each week to write about various aspects of running a part time woodworking business. Maybe one topic discusses pricing my work while the next reviews a new tool to the shop and maybe the following 3 are part of a series on the steps I took to start my business. Let’s not forget the lessons I teach my self in the shop as well! Although I am not sure how it will pan out but it should be fun and well hopefully I learn something along the way I always say it’s better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all. So with that being said stay tuned for yet another woodworking blog.