In the interior design projects we do, every client arrives with a clear figure in mind for the renovation budget. That figure usually survives until the first quote for custom furniture.
The lowest price I have seen for all the custom furniture in a 30 square metre apartment was around 10 thousand euro. In my practice the usual sums are 20, 30, even 50 thousand euro for areas between 40 and 80 square metres, and for the same area the difference comes almost entirely from the materials chosen.
Because I talk with clients about factory quotes almost every week, I have gathered here the real reasons behind those prices, high as they look at first:
All the raw material is imported
Moldova has no local production of boards or hardware for custom furniture, so the factories work with material brought in from abroad: chipboard and MDF from Egger, from the plant in Radauti, AGT boards from Turkey, Hettich hardware from Germany or Blum from Austria. Customs duty on goods of European or Turkish origin is zero, but the 20% VAT is still paid at import, and the supplier is paid in foreign currency. Today's board price is not the board price two months from now.
A whole chain of people works on one kitchen
The quote does not cover only the material, but also the work behind it. First comes the technologist, who takes the measurements on site and prepares the technical drawings of the furniture for production. In the factory your product passes through the hands of at least eight people, from the first cut of the board to the final assembly. At the end come the fitters, who deliver and install it in your home.
A modern factory costs money, and that money is in your price
Factories today no longer rely on manpower but on machinery: cutting lines, edge banding machines, automatic spray booths. The equipment shortens the working time, reduces waste and gives uniform parts, made exactly to the drawings. Every serious factory has it, every one of them paid for it, and writing it off is part of each quote.
Material prices move with the regional market
Since almost all the material is imported, its price depends on what happens at the producers in the region, on how their own supply of raw material tightens, and on the exchange rate. Furniture factory quotes are recalculated often, sometimes monthly, and rarely downwards. A quote you received three months ago is no longer a quote, only an estimate.
A long lead time is itself a cost
Custom furniture is not taken off a showroom floor. From the first conversation to installation, my projects usually run between two and three months, sometimes more, because the technical design, the approval of the drawings, the production and the fitting all sit in between. The factory keeps the order in production for whole weeks, with the material paid for in advance, and that shows in the price.
Where the money goes inside the same quote
Two kitchens of the same length can differ several times over in price. The difference does not come from the factory being greedy, but from four decisions:
- The fronts. Melamine faced chipboard is the cheapest option. Painted MDF, natural veneer and milled fronts push the price up considerably, because they are worked by hand and take time.
- The hardware. Soft close hinges and drawers from a named manufacturer last tens of thousands of opening cycles, while cheap hardware is replaced a few years later, on cabinets already installed, but the price differs by 5 to 8 times.
- Worktops and non standard elements. Acrylic stone, rounded corners, cabinets up to the ceiling, integrated lighting, all of it asks for design and production time.
- The number of cabinets. The budget most often breaks not on the kitchen, but on the wardrobes in the hallway and the bedrooms, which add up quietly.
This is where there is room to work. In a project prepared in advance we choose the materials against the real budget, keep the expensive fronts only where they are seen and move the rest to simpler solutions. Our packages and prices are on the pricing page, and we discuss the furniture budget from the concept stage onwards.
Custom furniture is expensive because it is, in practice, an industrial product made in a single copy, from imported material, by a whole team, over several months. That does not mean every quote is fair, but it does mean that a very low quote usually hides a compromise on material or on hardware. When the budget does not cover everything, we recommend buying in stages rather than lowering the quality across the whole house.
