Amish furniture is renowned for its quality and longevity. The pieces are often synonymous with quality furniture, and as a result are sought after from retailers and on the secondary market. As a result of that quality, Amish pieces are also known for being pretty pricey. While some may not have a problem paying for quality furniture, you might end up wondering just why the expensive price in the first place. Well, there are several reasons, and they all relate to the quality of Amish furniture.
Hand Crafted Quality
Amish furniture is hand crafted from solid wood. That means the pieces are not mass produced, but instead made through small production manufacturing methods. The same way the Amish make their pieces was how the furniture was made centuries ago, and that timeless quality is a big part of the price.
Solid wood isn’t used a lot in mass produced works, and if it is the furniture is usually held together with veneers and nails. Amish furniture eschews such modern technology, as, more often than not, the pieces are just fitted into place.
Traditional Tooling
Amish pieces are made from solid wood and hand crafted, sure, but how? Well, for the most part they make use of the same hand tools early carpenters would have used. That means the pieces take time to make, and each piece is in a way unique. Small production hand craftsmanship means lack of interchangeability of parts, though Amish furniture is well made enough you come pretty close. Quality takes time and a lot of labor, and both of those mean higher costs for quality work. Whether it’s Amish living room furniture or a coffee table, time is money.
Limited Production
Hand crafted, small production methods like those used by the Amish to make their renowned furniture does not allow for mass production, as alluded to previously. Limited production means that supply is often limited, for wholesalers, retailers, and even on the secondary market. Though the pieces can last for generations if maintained, it’s more often for them to be inherited than sold to a consignment shop. This reduces the availability on the secondary market, which is often high priced to begin with. Combined with the limited availability of supply and rising demand, and high prices are to be expected.
Wide Distribution
While supply is limited, demand is high, and plenty of sites and stores have started selling or have been selling Amish furniture, since getting it from the source would be problematic for a lot of people, plus defeat the purpose of Amish seclusion.
Sites like https://www.amishfurniturefactory.com/ make purchasing Amish furniture easier than ever. However, the production methods and materials make meeting demand difficult. Hand tooled pieces made from solid wood take time, and that means potential delays in stocking and shipping, which, for better or worse, also affects pricing. Generally, Amish furniture’s demand is relatively stable, but in recent years it has seen increased popularity. While the Amish can do their best to meet demand, at the end of the day a small piecework shop cannot meet the demands of a modern industrialized nation.
And that’s okay, because the quality craftsmanship that makes Amish furniture so highly desired is the point. If people weren’t willing to pay and wait for such pieces, they wouldn’t.
Responsible Harvesting
Such precise work with handed crafted tools means small production, which means limited volume of products, and, you guessed it, a high price. For the ecologically concerned, rest assured that the wood is sustainably harvested. The days of clearing forests to build cities are long gone, as is most of the wood. So, to ensure that Amish furniture can be made for generations to come, small production combines with sustainable harvesting to ensure the high quality solid wood that is made into Amish furniture will be around for the people of the future to enjoy.
That’s not to say other production methods can make use of sustainable harvesting and farming. In fact, they have to in the modern age. Still, the small production methods of the Amish, coupled with ecological safety, help reduce environmental impacts created from Amish furniture. That may mean a higher price overall, but we only have one Earth, and while wood may be a renewable resource, growing a tree large enough to cut down and make into a table takes time.
Time, labor, and precision are the short answers to the high cost of Amish furniture. Precise work with hand tools takes time, especially when working with solid wood. That means while each piece of Amish furniture might seem expensive, it is a hand produced work of functional art that is sure to last for years to come if well maintained. Since it is solid wood, with the right knowledge, making sure the pieces last isn’t nearly as hard as people might think.