As 2024 winds down and we head into a new year, everyone is putting together lists of resolutions and ideas for how they want their life to look in 2025. At Smith Farms, we’re doing the same thing and thinking about how the next year will look for our families, our homes, and our business. This means, of course, that we’re also hearing from friends and from customers what they’re looking for as we move into a new year.
As custom furniture makers, one request we’re starting to hear a lot from customers is for a live edge coffee table, so we wanted to take some time to talk about why we think this is a great idea! A live edge coffee table is a timeless piece that is honestly a great purchase at any time, but there are some things about this coming year that we think make now a better time than ever before.
If a live edge coffee table has been on your mind, but you’re unsure if this is the best time to start a relationship with custom furniture makers to create the perfect piece, then this post is for you. We hope this will answer many of your questions about working with Smith Farms, and for a deeper dive on a variety of topics related to custom furniture, we encourage you to take a look at the rest of our blog when you have a moment.
This Year Will Be a Great Year to Invest in Custom Furniture
How are you feeling going into 2025? It’s no big news that a lot of people are feeling a little uncertain right now, especially about the economy and their finances. This happens every election year, and this year is certainly no exception. With that in mind, you may be wondering if now is the right time to purchase something like a live edge coffee table made by custom furniture makers. Here’s the good news: As turbulent as the latter part of 2024 has felt, consumers across the country are feeling optimistic, and they are turning their priorities towards upgrading and remodeling their homes.
There could be many reasons for this, but one strong theory is that people are simply planning to spend more time at home in the coming year. While 2024 saw a big increase in travel, 2025 is likely to see a slowdown in people wanting to get out of town and much more emphasis put on creating a home environment that they and their families truly love.
If this sounds like you, this means you should focus on choosing pieces for your home that do more than just “fill a space” and that really bring you and your family a sense of peace and inspiration, and at Smith Farms, we agree that a live edge coffee table is the perfect choice!
Will a Live Edge Coffee Table Be in Style in 2025?
Looking at trends going into the new year, we can definitely say that live edge coffee tables are in style, and there are a few reasons for this. For one thing, classic, vintage pieces have been coming back into popularity over the last several years, and live edge furniture can certainly fit the category of classic or vintage.
But live edge does not necessarily have to mean classic or vintage. It also doesn’t have to mean “old-fashioned,” nor does it have to mean “rustic.” It can be any of those things, but the truth is that you can have a live edge coffee table built in any style you want. That’s the great thing about working with custom furniture makers—we can build pieces in any style, or we can even take some elements of one style and mix it with another. We’re here to make your vision come to life, and while we may have some suggestions of what has worked well for customers in the past, they are just that: suggestions. This is your process, and we want you to let your creativity run wild.
No matter what style you choose for your live edge coffee table, the look of live edge furniture is timeless. Because the whole purpose is to preserve the natural qualities of the wood, pieces with live edges seem like they “belong” in any context. We have seen live edge coffee tables in people’s homes that are generations old, yet they always look just right. They have a certain natural appeal that cannot be tied to a certain decade or moment.
Another feature that makes a live edge coffee table a timeless piece is the fact that each one tells a unique story. Generations from now, the story behind your live edge coffee table can be told over and over and will never fail to bring people together. First of all, the wood itself tells a story: At Smith Farms, we do everything we can to enhance whatever natural qualities the wood has to offer. Whether that’s a particular grain pattern or special swirls and knots, we believe our best work is done when that wood top showcases the beauty of the tree it came from.
But the other story that a live edge coffee table tells is the story of the unique process you go through in working with custom furniture makers to build it. That is something that cannot be replicated by picking a piece out on a showroom floor.
As people are reprioritizing their lives and valuing experiences over items, we are finding that people are seeking us out to deliver an item that is also an experience. Experiences never go out of style!
Working with Custom Furniture Makers for Your Live Edge Coffee Table Is a Unique Experience
So, what is it like working with Smith Farms for a live edge coffee table? Our process is collaborative, right from the beginning, and we think you will enjoy the experience almost as much as you enjoy the final result. We know that part of the reason you are considering working with custom furniture makers is because you haven’t been able to find what you’re looking for in stores or online. Our goal is to help you get exactly what you want, even if you don’t quite know what that is.
When you work with us at Smith Farms, we begin with a consultation. If you’re local, we love meeting you in person so we can look at inspiration photos together and really get an idea of what you do and don’t like. We can show you some of the wood slabs we have in stock in our shop, which can also get the ideas flowing. We find that our customers generally walk away from our initial consultation energized and inspired, especially after having already felt the frustration of spending a bunch of time searching stores and not finding any live edge coffee tables that they like.
After the initial consultation, we’ll help you choose the perfect piece of wood for the top. As previously mentioned, we have some incredible wood in stock at our shop, and we always encourage customers to come take a look. We have a variety of both domestic and exotic woods, and we have a collection of slabs as well as cross cut rounds for you to choose from.
If you are not local to the San Diego area or are otherwise unable to come to our shop (or if you don’t find the perfect piece in our inventory), we have other ways to help you find the piece of wood you want. We have relationships with small sawmills all over the country, and we will gladly have slabs shipped to us if you find something you love. We can also accompany you to some of the local private sawmills in the San Diego area—this is a way to see some beautiful slabs that you wouldn’t be able to find on your own via an online search.
Once we have the wood slab in hand, it’s time to design! Don’t worry—we do not expect you to have a fully fleshed-out idea. That is our job. We’ll have a lot of questions as we talk through shape, size, style, and what the base will look like. This is an incredibly collaborative process where we’ll share sketches and seek your feedback, and we hope you will speak up. We want to build a live edge coffee table for you that becomes a centerpiece of your home and that inspires your family and your guests for years to come.
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Once we finalize the design with you and start building, we’ll be sure to share progress photos as we go. Our customers have told us how fun it is to see their vision coming to life, and we love this phase as well. Not only are we getting to work with our hands and do what we do best, but we also get to feel the excitement alongside our customers as what started as a mere idea becomes real.
Finally, the time comes when you get to see your live edge coffee table in your home. We are able to ship it to you when we finish it, but one thing people may not realize about Smith Farms is that we can deliver it to you and make sure that it is properly set up and leveled in your home. And we don’t only deliver within a certain radius around the San Diego area—we will come to you wherever you are in the United States (yes, even Alaska!). In other words, wherever you are, consider yourself local to us. It is our priority to ensure that your live edge coffee table sits perfectly where you want it to be, and if that means we drive to you, we’re happy to do it!
Will a Live Edge Coffee Table Made by Custom Furniture Makers Be Too Expensive?
Because we offer such a thorough and personalized experience, a big fear we hear from customers is that working with custom furniture makers like Smith Farms is going to be prohibitively expensive. Talking about budget is certainly an important part of our process, and we do everything we can to be transparent and upfront about where certain costs come from, but we also think it’s important to distinguish the cost of a live edge coffee table versus the value it will have in your life.
We understand how important everyone’s hard-earned money is, and that’s why we are so passionate about creating pieces of the highest quality. Custom furniture makers are not the cheapest option when it comes to furniture, and we know that. We would never try to gloss over that reality. At the same time, a live edge coffee table made by custom furniture makers is going to be made with high-quality materials using time-honored construction techniques. The result is a piece that will stand the test of time.
As we have mentioned, when you work with Smith Farms for a live edge coffee table, part of the process is choosing the piece of wood for the top, whether that be a slab or a cross cut round. We have dozens of varieties of wood in stock in our shop, and we also have the ability to source wood from just about anywhere. What we can assure you is that we will only work with wood that will make for an incredible table that you will want to have in your home for years and that you will be able to pass down to future generations. Lower-quality wood may initially seem more attractive from a cost perspective, but then you have to consider the fact that you may need to replace your table in a few years, doubling your original cost.
This is what we mean by value, rather than cost. Cost is certainly one piece of the puzzle, but we believe the value something offers you over time is every bit as important to consider. And we are seeing this more frequently as we head in to 2025: As consumers are prioritizing improving their home environments, they’re also prioritizing items that will bring true value to their lives—they may cost more on the front end, but the quality, the craftsmanship, and the durability more than make up for the price.
Custom Furniture Makers Are Committed to Sustainability
Something else that has been on consumers’ minds for the last couple years, and we expect this to continue, is sustainability. People are losing interest in items that frequently need to be replaced, and when it comes to furniture, that means pieces that won’t fall apart after a year or two. Customers want pieces that will stay beautiful from year to year and that will also hold up after a move or possibly even multiple moves. They are tired of tossing broken furniture into the landfill, and we agree! That is a painful thought when you know there’s a better way.
By nature of what we do and how we do it, custom furniture makers naturally practice sustainability. Because we are laser focused on building quality pieces that last, we ensure that the cycle of disposability is broken. And we’re not just keeping furniture pieces out of landfills—we’re also creating a pathway for old wood (that may have otherwise ended up in the trash) to have a renewed life. At Smith Farms, we have found some incredible reclaimed wood from old barns and architectural salvage areas.
Recycling old wood is great, and that’s not the only way in which custom furniture makers are practicing sustainability. Because we build each of our pieces to order and are not working with large quantities, we have the flexibility to source most of our wood locally and support smaller sawmills across the country. This means that we are not contributing to deforestation or disruption of ecosystems as we’re gathering materials for projects.
Larger furniture companies have come under fire in recent years for using practices that are destructive to the planet and are therefore focusing their efforts on developing more sustainable processes. Almost every national company has a “sustainability” statement (or even an entire section) on their website, and they’re trying to show customers how they’ve changed. Custom furniture makers don’t have to convince anyone—it’s just the way we have always done business.
Getting Your Live Edge Coffee Table from Custom Furniture Makers Supports Small Businesses
Speaking of how we’ve always done business, we are so proud to be a small, local business in San Diego. We love the flexibility that comes with being small, and this is what allows us to have such strong connections with our customers. We also know that customers enjoy the experience they have at small businesses—according to a recent survey by Lending Tree, 92% of consumers responded that they shop at local small businesses at least monthly, and 65% said that they wish they could shop locally more often than they currently do.
While some small businesses across the country reported that 2024 was a tough year, there is a lot of optimism going into 2025. People are excited to spend their money in their own communities and support the local businesses in their areas. With online shopping and quick shipping becoming so convenient, it may seem like people are leaving in-person interactions in the past, but that’s just not the case. People are craving personalized experiences, and that’s exactly what small businesses can offer.
As custom furniture makers, we at Smith Farms love the interaction we have with our customers. Commissioning a custom furniture piece is such a special and unique experience that you really can’t get any other way. If you walk into a large furniture warehouse or even a specialty retail store like Restoration Hardware or Pottery Barn in search of a live edge coffee table, you’ll surely find some nice and helpful salespeople. But what you won’t find is a shopping experience that is personalized just for you and your needs. Larger businesses simply don’t have the resources to offer that type of service.
We hope that in 2025, you will consider ways in which you can support small businesses in your local area. You will find incredible connection and service from the people who run and/or work at those businesses, and you will also feel a greater connection to your community and your neighborhood. We think that is something we all need now more than ever.
Make 2025 the Year You Get the Live Edge Coffee Table You’ve Been Wanting
There’s no better time than now to get in touch with custom furniture makers and get started on the process of building a live edge coffee table that you will love for years to come. We hope we’ve answered some questions you may have had and possibly reassured you of some fears. If you are thinking about your next year and ways you can make it truly special, we think a live edge coffee table would be a fantastic idea.
When you’re ready to get the process started or if you come up with any questions that haven’t been answered here, contact us at Smith Farms. We can’t wait to hear your ideas and start working on a design for a table that will elevate and enhance your home.
