Building The Living Room

This week, we'll be launching nearly 30 new living room pieces. The new line will feature end tables / side tables, coffee tables, entryway tables / sofa tables, bookshelves, TV stand consoles, and more. We've been working on this for months and we're so excited to share the entire collection! Historically, James+James has been exceptionally strong in the dining room. Our name is almost synonomous with high quality dining furniture. Over the last few years, we've been increasingly asked for a wider offering and new designs for the entire home.  Last summer, we relaunched our bed collection and began to offer barn door kits. As our company continues to grow, we're focusing a lot of resources into bringing the same quality and customization we're known for in the dining room across the entire home. 

With nearly 70% of our sales coming via our website, we knew that photography was an area we needed to improve to help our remote customers truly experience our new designs online. We also wanted to make sure our new pieces were designed with the entire room in mind. So naturally, we decided to build an entire living room in our woodshop!

Every new piece was designed around customer feedback. We wanted pieces that were as practical as they were beautiful. We used a lot of clean lines and mixed metal and wood materials to achieve a solid, yet simplistic design for every piece. Before any wood was cut or metal was welded, we focused on the smallest details to make sure all of our designs were exactly where they should be. Changing the thickness of the wood, overhang, or metal can dramatically alter a piece's appearance.

Nothing in the set was left to chance. Every detail was planned out in digital renderings before a single nail was hammered. This allowed us to create the perfect setting to feature our new furniture line.

Our carpenters turned 1x6 boards into actual shiplap, which was hand painted to achieve the perfect modern farmhouse look.

We wanted everything in the set to be very realistic, so when we needed a fire place, we built it from real brick and not a faux set material.

Next, we had one of our carpenters design and built custom build-ins for the room to create interesting lines for our photo backgrounds. Glass was left out to avoid lighting glare during shooting.

After meeting with our photographer, the decision was reached to add in two large windows, so we could let in more "sunlight."

We also bricked the wall outside the small window, so even the outside looked realistic. 

Finally shoot day arrived. We turned off the overhead lights and recreated sunlight with huge photography lights outside the set's windows. This allowed us to take our time shooting and not worry about the moving sun throughout the two day shoot.

We are so excited about our new living room furniture. The line is fully customizable by length, width, height, and finish. You can find all of our living room furniture priced here: https://carpenterjames.com/store/t/living

- James Smith, Co-Founder James+James Furniture