How commissioning custom furniture works.
Custom furniture at Goldenwood is drawn for your room and built in our Wetherill Park workshop, where the family has made timber pieces since 1988. Every commission, a single piece or a house of fitted joinery, runs the same six steps: consult, design, quote, crafting, inspection and installation.
What does custom furniture mean at Goldenwood?
It means anything we make can be changed to suit you, furniture and joinery alike: its size, its timber, its finish and its layout.
The collection is where a brief can start, not a list to choose from. A table can be drawn longer, a bookcase shallower, a wardrobe around a window. Every timber on our materials page can be ordered in, and we can source timbers the catalogue does not use yet.
How does a commission run, step by step?
1. Consult. You tell us what the piece is for and where it will stand, and we look at the room together, in your home or at the Wetherill Park workshop. The timbers and finishes you are weighing up are there to handle, so the choice is made with the samples in front of you.
2. Design. We take the measurements ourselves and draw the piece, then show it to you in 3D before any timber is cut. That is where proportions get settled: the height of a desk, the depth of a shelf, where a drawer sits. Two rounds of changes are part of this step.
3. Quote. Once the design is agreed, you get a quote itemised line by line, and it is locked when you sign. For fitted work, shop drawings and a production schedule then keep the workshop in step with the builder and the other trades on site.
4. Crafting. From the first cut to the final coat, one maker builds your piece in the Sydney workshop, and you get photos as each major stage is reached.
5. Inspection. Each piece is checked twice: its structure before the finish goes on, and its surface once it is finished.
6. Installation. In metropolitan Sydney our own team brings the piece in, unwraps and checks it in the room, sets it where you want it and takes the packaging away. Fitted work is measured on site and installed by our own crew.
What custom made furniture can you commission?
Furniture and fitted joinery, and the two can be drawn together. Furniture: dining tables, beds, sideboards, desks, sofas, chairs, bedside tables, coffee tables, bookcases, dressing tables, hall tables, tallboys, TV units and display cabinets. Wall units come both ways, as a freestanding piece or built from floor to ceiling.
Fitted joinery: kitchens, wardrobes (walk-in, built in, or freestanding like the Ormond), hallway and laundry storage, bathroom and powder-room vanities, and cellars. Timber joinery goes further: the Terrigal Staircase, the Balmain and Paddington entry doors, the Clovelly window seat and the Avalon home bar.
Each kind of piece has its own page. If you are after a wardrobe, a sofa or lounge, a bed, a desk or a TV unit, go straight to it:
Which timbers and finishes can custom timber furniture be made in?
Furniture is made in solid timber. The timbers we work include American Walnut, Tasmanian Oak, Spotted Gum, Blackbutt, American Oak, Tasmanian Blackwood and Jarrah, and we can source others.
Kitchens, wardrobes, vanities and fitted joinery are built as standard in engineered board, finished in sprayed two-pack paint or polyurethane, with honed or polished stone tops templated and fitted where the design calls for them. Any of them can be made in timber instead, as the Meadowfield Timber Vanity is, in Tasmanian Blackwood. Most pieces leave the workshop in a two-pack finish; if yours is oiled, we tell you at handover, and the care page covers it.
How long does it take, and what does the warranty cover?
Most catalogue pieces ship within 8 to 14 weeks of design confirmation. Larger fitted-joinery and kitchen commissions depend on scope, workshop load and the timber required, so their lead time is set in the quote.
Our 10-year craftsmanship warranty covers defects in joinery, structure or finish that come from how we built the piece. Hinges, runners and other installed moving hardware are guaranteed for the working life of the piece, and once the warranty ends we still repair our pieces at fair cost.
Because each piece is made to order, it cannot be returned for a change of mind once production has begun. Your rights under Australian Consumer Law are not reduced.
Can I see the timbers before I commit?
Yes. The showroom shares the floor with the workshop at 6 Coates Place, Wetherill Park, so you can watch pieces being made on the day you come in. It is open seven days, 9:30am to 5:30pm, and you can walk in without booking. It holds sample boards of our working timbers and every finish, and David, Cindy or one of the senior makers will walk you through your brief.
If Wetherill Park is out of your way, we can post a small kit of timber chips and finish samples, and the first consult can happen in your home instead.
Commissioning, answered.
- Is your furniture made in Australia?
- Yes. It is designed and crafted in Sydney, at our workshop in Wetherill Park, and the workshop buys from Australian suppliers.
- Do you deliver outside Sydney?
- Yes. Our own crew installs across the Sydney basin. For regional NSW, interstate or overseas projects we coordinate specialist furniture transport, and where appropriate one of our makers meets the piece at its destination to install it.
- What does the warranty not cover?
- Normal wear, misuse, impact, water, heat, harsh cleaning agents, the natural movement of solid timber, alterations or repairs by someone else, and outdoor use or use outside the setting the piece was made for.
- What if something is wrong when it arrives?
- Have the fault recorded on the delivery sheet, then email photos to admin@goldenwoodfurniture.com.au within 7 days.
