About the house
A small furniture house, working slowly and on purpose.
MAISON MARCELIN LLC was founded in 2016 with one bench, one bandsaw and a stubborn idea: that furniture should be repairable, re-finishable and worth moving house for.
Our story
Started in a two-room workshop in South Florida
The first Maison Marcelin piece was a dining table made for a friend who could not find anything long enough, narrow enough or honest enough for a railroad apartment. It was oak, oiled by hand, and it is still in use — which is more or less the whole business plan.
Today the house runs a single workshop with a team of eleven: four makers, two finishers, an upholstery room and a small studio that draws, answers enquiries and packs the crates. Nothing is outsourced to a factory, and nothing is made before somebody has asked for it. That is why lead times are measured in weeks rather than days, and why we can tell you which maker built your sideboard.
We work in a deliberately narrow palette — European white oak, American walnut, ash, honed Italian travertine, undyed wool, linen and shearling — because a small house gets better at a few materials rather than competent at fifty.
See what we make- 2016 founded in Miramar, FL
- 11 makers, finishers & designers
- 2,400+ pieces delivered to date
- 94% of orders from repeat clients or referrals
What we hold to
Four commitments
These are not marketing lines — they decide what we are willing to make and, more often, what we turn down.
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01
Solid, or not at all
Structural parts are solid hardwood or stone. Where we use a panel — the back of a cabinet, a drawer base — we say so on the product page. No particle board hidden behind an oil finish.
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02
Repairable by design
Oil finishes instead of lacquer, joinery instead of staples, covers that unzip. Ten years from now you should be able to refresh the surface with a cloth rather than replace the piece.
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03
Made after you order
We hold almost no stock. It keeps the workshop honest, keeps materials from being cut for nothing, and means your piece is finished within days of leaving for your address.
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04
Honest advice, including "no"
If a fabric will not survive your household, or a table is too big for the room, we will say so before we take the order. We would rather lose the sale than the room.
How we make
From drawing to doorstep
Every piece follows the same five steps. Nothing is skipped for speed, and every step has a person’s initials against it.
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01
Drawing & sampling
Full-size drawings, then a sample in the actual material — a finish panel for timber, an offcut for stone, a cutting of fabric for upholstery. Nothing goes to the bench until you have approved the sample.
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02
Timber selection & milling
Boards are chosen for matching grain and colour, then milled and left to settle in the workshop for two weeks before jointing — the slowest way to avoid a table that moves in a heated room.
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03
Joinery & assembly
Mortise-and-tenon, dowel and hand-cut dovetail. Screws and staples are used where they are correct — drawer runners, upholstery webbing — and nowhere else. Each frame is signed and dated underneath.
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04
Finishing by hand
Surfaces are sanded through six grits and finished with a hard-wax oil, applied and burnished by hand in three passes. It takes two days longer than a sprayed lacquer and can be repaired at home with a cloth.
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05
Crating & white-glove delivery
Pieces are wrapped in wool blankets, crated in solid timber and delivered by a two-person team who place the piece, assemble it if needed and take every scrap of packaging away with them.
A note from the founder
“I grew up in a house where nothing was thrown away — a chair was re-glued, a table was re-oiled, a sofa was re-covered. Maison Marcelin exists because that instinct is almost impossible to buy now. We are trying to build furniture that outlives its first owner, and to be honest with people about what that costs and how long it takes.”
As seen in
- Dwell
- Architectural Digest
- Kinfolk
- The World of Interiors
- Domino
Come and see the work in person.
The Miramar studio holds a standing selection of every piece in the collection. Appointments are one hour, unhurried, and you are welcome to bring fabrics, plans or photographs.