Have you ever struggled with finding the right piece of furniture for a particular space, whether it be for your home or business? Have you had the size, style, and color of what you wanted in mind and spent hours scouring the internet and stores trying to find it, only to come up short? Believe it or not, this is the reality for many when it comes to furniture shopping.

Why does this happen so often? Because rooms, homes, commercial spaces - you name it - aren’t designed and built to fit particular furniture sizes and styles, in most cases. Unless an interior designer is involved or a space is being custom-built, we assure you builders are not thinking about how easy, or not so easy, it will be for the owner to furnish the space. Instead, they’re looking at the finish line of the build in order to sell it = $$$.

Insert the high-rise apartment buildings in our major cities, such as bustling New York City. These were built with one thing in mind: capacity. In other words, “how can we fit as many apartments into this building as possible?”. The builders certainly were successful with maxing out the building with as many apartments as they could fit, however, as a renter or owner, you’ll be lucky to fit a standard size sofa in your living room or standard size bed in your bedroom, if you even have a bedroom separate from your living space. Regardless… we love you, New York!

Now, insert those who don’t have a problem with space and instead, may have too much of it. These are the folks that have an oversize living room or basement and want to fill it with something large and comfy cozy. On the other hand, there are also people that don’t want anything oddly large, but instead desire a super unique piece of furniture in regards to style, color, and upholstery - something that only exists in their mind.

We bid good luck to all furniture shoppers of the scenarios above because their journey to finding the right piece won’t be easy. That is, of course, unless they stumble across Tandem Arbor. That’s right, Tandem Arbor has the ability to solve all the furniture shopping nightmares above with our line of custom made furniture. The process of designing a custom piece with us is glitzy, it’s glamorous, it’s unique, and even more important, it’s accessible - everyone deserves furniture that not only matches their vision and works in their space, but that they also love.

So, there’s a reason we called out the specific scenarios above and that’s because we have a glitzy client story to go along with each. Let’s get into them…

We have hundreds of stories of clients that come to Tandem Arbor because they’re struggling with finding a piece of furniture that will fit well in their NYC pad. We can’t even hone in on just one, so we’ll give you an inside look at how it normally goes.

Someone moves into their new apartment in NYC and quickly realizes they’ll have to be very clever with space planning and how they furnish their apartment. That initial excitement of moving into a new place in such an enchanting city quickly dies off. We know because we’ve been there. Oftentimes the most difficult piece to find is the sofa. These tough and hustling New Yorkers search extensively for a small, yet comfortable sofa for their 10’ by 10’ living room only to find that their options are typically the equivalent of a futon. If you’re working your butt off every day on the job, the last thing you want to come home to relax on is a futon. We don’t even know if you could truly call that relaxing…

Anyways, Tandem Arbor is happy to come to the rescue in this scenario! We’ve had many New Yorkers find us after feeling defeated while on their furniture hunt. We take the stress and burden out of finding a piece by offering these people options. Options in size, options in upholstery and color, and options in style. We work as a furniture partner in design and production and create a piece that is completely custom to the needs of the client. Most of our NYC clients end up customizing the 10’ Varick Sofa because it’s all about comfort and works well in smaller sizes. Although this is a smaller sofa, in true New York fashion it typically doesn’t fit through the apartment building front door or elevator, so we call Dr. Sofa to the rescue! Their team deconstructs it on the street then reassembles it inside the apartment. No matter what though, it always works out.

Ta-da, the glitz and glamor has taken full effect! After a five-week turnaround, this once worried and stressed furniture shopping addicted New Yorker now has a new apartment with a new sofa that they can’t wait to sink into at the end of the day. Not to mention, it fits just right in their smaller space. It goes without saying that living in NYC certainly has its woes, but speaking from experience, as Tandem Arbor was founded in this amazing city, it’s worth it.

Say hello to one of our wonderful clients, Evan G! He presented a scenario in which he wanted a large sofa for his basement that was modular, almost bed-like, modern, and clean. Evan wanted it to look like denim, but to also be soft and performance style fabric. Finding this was nearly impossible until he came to Tandem Arbor.

Keeping in mind that Evan’s main focus was to be able to comfortably seat a bunch of people without having them on top of each other, we went to the drawing board. None of our typical styles met the match exactly. Our daybeds only comfortably seat three people and a sectional didn’t work based on the placement of the TV and visibility. This is when our team of designers came up with what is now known as the “Pit Sectional”, which is exactly what it sounds like - a sectional with a pit of extra seating in the middle.

Needless to say, this piece was a huge hit with Evan and those he was entertaining. We started receiving similar requests, therefore we evolved the silhouette and introduced the Evans Collection to our custom furniture line-up later that year. This particular project was intimidating at first due to the extensive wishlist, however, it turned into a successful story of custom furniture glitz and glam.

Our clients don’t just fall into the categories of homeowners or interior designers. Tandem Arbor also works with many businesses on furnishings for their storefronts and offices. In fact, one of our first clients happened to be Lauren James back in 2015.

The brand came to us because they needed pink furniture to match their bubblegum pink brand color. They knew they couldn’t go to a typical furniture store, hand them their bubblegum pink CMYK and they’d be able to produce it - that just wasn’t going to work. In order to achieve their desired look, we worked directly with our fabric mill partner to mill both velvet and linen upholstery in their exact brand pink. The color eventually became known as “piglet pink”. We then designed them a sofa and chair to reflect their aesthetic.

In the end, the furniture was exactly what our contact at Lauren James had envisioned, but couldn’t find at furniture stores. The pieces were a huge hit and the start of many more custom furniture pieces with very specific requests. In a way, this project was the start of Tandem Arbor too, and we’ll forever be grateful for the fact that they fully embraced the glitz and glamor of custom furniture.

So, there you have it. Three unique scenarios in which custom furniture was the right solution for the space and homeowner/brand coordinator’s headaches. We’ll ask again… Have you ever struggled with finding the right piece of furniture for a particular space, whether it be for your home or business? Have you had the size, style, and color of what you wanted in mind and spent hours scouring the internet and stores trying to find it, only to come up short?

The reality is, many of us will answer “yes” to one of the above at some point in our lives. We will either give in to something we’ve found online/in a furniture store and make it work, or we’ll embrace the glitzy, glamorous process of creating custom furniture. Our design experts here at Tandem Arbor hope you do the latter.

Are you ready to create a custom piece with Tandem Arbor? Consult with one of our furniture specialists today!