Ran a woodshop long enough to see the same mistake sink client relationships over and over: a designer specs a piece off a Pinterest photo, gets a number that sounds reasonable, and finds out three weeks later the wood movement, joinery, or finish schedule blows the budget by 40%.

Here's the fix we use with every designer we work with now — a deposit-gated scoping call before any final number gets quoted. The deposit isn't a fee, it's what buys the shop time to actually spec the piece: species selection, seasonal wood movement tolerances, hardware sourcing, and a real fabrication timeline. Only after that does a hard number go out.

It sounds like an extra step. In practice it's the difference between a client getting a $4,200 table on time and a client getting a $6,800 surprise two weeks before install.

If you're a designer who's been burned by a woodshop lowballing a quote and then re-negotiating mid-build — that's the exact problem we built our process around. Happy to talk through a project even if you're just scoping right now.