The case for slow furniture

A flat-packed sofa costs less on the day and more every year after. It is engineered to an accountant's tolerance: enough particleboard to survive the warranty, not enough to survive a house move.

A commissioned piece inverts the arithmetic. The Bramble costs what three disposable sofas cost — and outlives ten of them. Somewhere around year six, slow furniture quietly becomes the cheapest thing in the room.

But the better argument isn't financial. Objects built by hand carry the builder's patience into the room. You sit differently on a thing that was made for you. Guests notice, though they rarely know what they're noticing. That pause — that's the whole case.