From the outside, custom furniture pricing looks like a guess. It isn’t. Every quote comes down to three things: the wood, the hours, and the shop doing the work. Here is one table, priced line by line.
The table
Walnut dining table, 1¼" × 40" × 80", seats six to eight. Four legs, aprons, mortise and tenon joinery. A Classic-to-Custom build.
The board foot
Lumber is sold by the board foot, a piece 12" × 12" × 1" thick. Multiply thickness × width × length in inches and divide by 144. Lumber is measured thickness × width × length, the hardwood trade’s order. Thickness first, because that’s what you’re buying.
We buy walnut S3S (surfaced on three sides) at about $14 a board foot in San Diego, give or take a dollar depending on the supplier and what’s available.
What the table is made of isn’t what you buy
| Finished | Waste | Bought | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Top: 1¼ × 40 × 80 | 27.8 bf | 30% | 36.1 bf |
| Aprons: 1 × 3½ × 248 | 6.0 bf | 20% | 7.2 bf |
| Legs: 6 × 6 × 32, four of them | 32.0 bf | 30% | 41.6 bf |
| Total | 65.8 bf | 84.9 bf |
Not every board makes the cut. A wide top needs color and grain that run together across several boards. A leg needs a strong match on all four faces. Small parts like aprons waste less.
The legs take more walnut than the top. A leg done properly carries its grain around all four sides, and that takes wood.
84.9 bf × $14 = $1,190. With sales tax, about $1,280.
Sourcing and acclimation
Material comes from primary suppliers who carry stock to our standard. If it isn’t there, we wait for the next shipment or source outside the area. When it reaches the shop, the ends are cut so each piece can release moisture. Then it sits for 2–3 weeks, depending on size and material. None of that waiting is billed.
The hours
80 hours at the bench, ten 8-hour days.
| Milling, joinery, fabrication, final sizing | 3 days |
| Layout, assembly joinery, dry fit, adjustments, glue-up | 4 days |
| Sanding, touch-ups, details, final shaping, hardware, finish | 3 days |
| At the bench | 10 days |
Finish prep starts 48 hours after glue-up. Then the finish cures for at least a week before delivery.
Design
For Classic and standard Custom builds, the concept, design and drawing time on each job is treated as R&D and isn’t charged to the client. That work is part of our service. Highly custom and Bespoke work carries a design fee, structured around the scope of the project.
The shop rate
$50 an hour. It covers the labor and everything the labor runs on: rent, power, sharpening, blades, glue, sandpaper, finish, delivery. One rate, no line items. 80 hours × $50 = $4,000.
The total
| Walnut | $1,280 |
| Shop rate | $4,000 |
| Table | $5,280 |
The same table in White Oak
S3S white oak runs $7–8 a board foot. Same board feet, same hours: about $4,700. Changing the species moved the price about $600. The work is the rest of it.
Lead time
8 weeks for this table, and about seven of those are the table being built and cured. Our lead times run 8–12 weeks, depending on the piece.
Every quote we send is built this way.
Prices as of October 2026. Lumber moves; so do quotes.
RSF Table Co.Price Guide →