FAQ

The process is as simple as a conversation. Send us any information or guidance you have -- dimensions of the space, materials you'd like, and how you would like the structure to be laid out (ceiling, wall, or bottom standing). From there, we talk through options, pricing and send you sketches for final approval before purchase is required.

We generally require payment in full before shipping. For completely non-libelous reasons, we refer to this as the "Yumi Rule." If you would prefer an additional layer of protection, we are more than happy to work with you through a third-party platform like Etsy.

Most commonly, glass, stone and wood. For more specialized materials, like glass and stone, we provide custom cut sheets, specific to your design, that you can take to your local manufacturer or select vendors we may recommend. For wood projects, we customize and fabricate most projects in house.

Yes we can provide glass! Shelves will ship separately from your rails, but we do our best to time arrival together and we'll send you tracking information for both. Just ask and we can provide a quote.

You're also welcome to take the quote and shop around locally to compare, we won't take it personally.

Cut sheets are drawings or templates, specific to the design of your piece, that you can take to any local manufacturer (glassmaker, stonemason, woodworker, etc.) to have shelves made for your piece. Essentially, you can just hand them over to a local fabricator and they will have all the information they need to custom fabricate your pieces.

First, don't panic! It just means that your piece needs to connect to a strong enough material to hold the weight.

1. If you're doing some renovation, chat with your GC about installing blocking (translated: wood behind the drywall). It's typically pretty simple to do and doesn't add much time/cost.

2. We can design to hit wall studs or ceiling joists, and we can walk you through how to find them.

If neither of those work for you, ask us about our frames that don't require any reinforcement.

This varies by frame style and shelving material, but we do everything we can during the design process to ensure you never have to worry about weight limits on shelves. The rule of thumb is that our products can always store books and bottles, but not gold bars. If you have specific items you're planning around, send us a note and we can work with you.

The chrome and brass plated rails are overlaid by a highly protective layer of clear coat so they're not exposed to elements and don't wear out, age, or patina.

Powder coat finishes are extremely durable and will last a lifetime, but are most delicate during install, so we recommend taking extra care with the pieces as you're getting set up.

The frames will arrive disassembled into primary components that you'll simply twist together to build the unit together with the shelves.

Wood shelves will be marked with painter's tape to indicate the top of the shelf and location in the unit.

Most pieces are not difficult to install, but it does take some time, attention and a drill. For most pieces the difficult is about on par with assembling certain popular... Swedish designed pieces, except with 50% more satisfaction and 100% fewer tiny wrenches. About 30% of our customers just have a handyman do it -- the rest do it themselves. However, for pieces that require suspending a piece entirely from the wall or ceiling, we would recommend working with a licensed contractor.

We provide install instructions for every piece, but if you're looking for more guidance on your piece specifically, just ask us!

Yes! How else would our products find themselves in such beautiful spaces? Check out our For Designers page for more information.

....you clean your shelves? We're impressed.

Rustic Pine Shelves - We seal the wood with a polycrylic that protects and extends the life of the shelves. They shouldn't need more than the occasional dusting, but in the event you want to wipe them down more thoroughly we recommend just a wet rag, and a mild soap if you're truly dedicated.

Butcher Block Shelves & Desks - We recommend reapplying tung oil about once a year to protect the finish and add beautiful depth to the woodgrain. It's a simple and quick process, don't be surprised if you mutter a lot of ""oooooohs"" and ""aaaahhhhhs""".

Probably, yes. Send us a message with the details of your shelves, and we'll let you know which designs would work with them.

Yes, absolutely. We will treat you the way we wish businesses would treat us -- with fairness, integrity and a dedication to making things right. Our only request is that you recognize that we are a small, handcrafted business. We do not have a returns department and we make each piece to order, so returns and refunds can be impactful. TL;DR, try not to order custom products with a casual intention to try it out and return it because of our generous return policy, k? (We see you, Yumi).

No, but we recommend tempering for strength and safety. With tempered glass, you'll have higher weight limits on the shelves, and in the (very unlikely) event something does break, it'll break into chunks rather than dangerous shards.

We recommend 3/8" or 1/2" tempered glass for most shelving projects. Our designs can accommodate almost any thickness, but thicknesses have different implications for shelf weight limits, complexity of install, etc. Let us know what you're interested in, and we can help guide you through the design considerations.