Pretoria workshop · Pricing
The price is on the page, before you talk to anyone.
Custom furniture almost always starts with a week of emails before anyone will tell you what it costs. We do it the other way round: you set the size and the materials, the number moves while you watch, and you only send it to us when it already looks right. This page explains exactly what that number is made of.
What you are paying for
Two things, and nothing else.
1. The material, at the merchant’s shelf price. Every board, every length of steel tube, the edging, the paint, the bolts — each one priced at what it actually costs to buy on the day, and each one itemised on your build sheet. There is no multiplier hidden on top of the material. When you pay the deposit we send you the merchant slips, so you can hold the receipt next to the build sheet and check the two agree.
2. The workshop rate, for the hours. Cutting, tacking, welding, grinding the welds flush, the acetone wipe-down, two coats of paint, cutting and edging the board, assembly, and the design work behind it. That is the part that is skilled labour, and it is the part you are actually hiring a workshop for. It scales with the piece — more joints and more square metres means more hours — which is why a bigger desk costs more than a small one by a predictable amount rather than a guessed one.
That is the whole formula. If the price of steel moves at the merchant, the number on the page moves with it. Nothing is padded to leave room for haggling, because there is no haggling step.
Why it is unusual
Compared with the two normal ways to buy.
Most people choosing made-to-measure furniture are picking between a custom carpenter and a furniture shop. Neither is a bad option; they are just different trades in different shapes. Here is where we sit:
| Grain & Steel | A custom carpenter | A furniture shop | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time to a price | While you design it | Days of back-and-forth | On the shelf edge |
| What the price is made of | Itemised, with receipts | Usually one lump sum | Not disclosed |
| Change the size | Any size, price updates live | Yes, re-quote each time | Fixed sizes only |
| Paying | Half up front, half on delivery | Often a large deposit | In full, up front |
| Who builds it | Alex, in Pretoria | The carpenter | A factory, elsewhere |
The two right-hand columns describe how those trades usually work, not any particular business. Plenty of carpenters price fairly and plenty of shops sell good furniture — the difference we are pointing at is when you find out the number, and whether you can see what it is made of.
The honest bits
What this pricing does not do.
It is an estimate until it is confirmed in writing. The number in the studio is calculated off current material costs, but we check it by hand before we commit to it. Within one working day you get the price confirmed in writing and a date for the bench. If it has moved, you hear about it first, before any money changes hands, and you can walk away owing nothing.
It is not the cheapest way to own a desk. Flat-pack is cheaper, and will always be cheaper, because it is made by the thousand in a factory. What you get here instead is the exact size you asked for, in the materials you picked, welded by hand, with a two-year structural warranty on the welds and joinery.
It does not include delivery. Delivery is a flat R300 around Pretoria, or free if you collect from the workshop. That is one fee per order, not per piece — a desk and a matching coffee table on the same order still cost R300 to deliver.
See it for yourself.
The fastest way to understand the pricing is to move a slider and watch the number change.
Open the studio — see the price move Read the questions people ask