table of (dis)contents grew out of a frustration with the state of mass-manufactured furniture today. Most items on the market today can only be expected to last 5-10 years, yet they’re almost always made from components that will never bio-degrade. This means that even something that seems like a good deal now will cost you more over time, as you’ll likely need to replace it 2 or 3 times over the course of your life time. Yet each of those discarded pieces will sit buried in landfills, leaching chemicals and plastic particles long after we’re gone. That’s a bad deal for you and the environment.

That’s why we’ve devoted ourselves to using the methods of the past to build furniture that will last long into the future. The tools you’ll find on my workbench are the same ones you would’ve found in any cabinet-maker or joiner’s workshop before the Third Industrial Revolution in the mid-20th century. Indeed, some of my tools may have had their first lives in those workshops: several of my most-used tools were made in America from cast iron and steel before the first World War.

The pieces we make can be expected to last just as long. Solid wood construction is paired with joinery methods that have their origins in ancient civilizations. This means when you commission a piece from table of (dis)contents, you can expect it to last for generations. Sure, “they don’t make ’em like they used to.” But we do.