‘Butterfly’ Television Cabinet – a beautiful example of our bespoke service

Every time we ship our Chinese furniture from either Shanghai or Beijing, along with our standard pieces and antique furniture there are always several items that we have ‘made to order’ to meet specific customer requirements. This is one of the most enjoyable parts of the job, as we work with a customer to come up with a suitable design and then see the piece come into creation. In many cases the design will be based on one of our standard pieces – often with tweaks to the dimensions or finish, but sometimes we work to produce something a little different. It is very rare that the workshop is not able to meet the specifications we give them.

One of the pieces that we very often make to order is our Television Cabinet. The standard cabinet comfortably fits a 32″ TV and is a great way to hide away a not particularly attractive piece of modern technology when not in use. However, as flat screen TVs seem to grow ever larger we are frequently asked to make bigger versions of the cabinet. One such request came from a customer in York recently, who wanted to fit a 40″ TV inside. Rather than one of our plain black or natural lacquer finishes, she also preferred the beautiful gold leaf and painted finish of our ‘Shanxi Butterfly’ cabinets, but wanted the paintings to match the carefully chosen colours and decor of her sitting room. The customer was able to proivde swatches of her curtain and cushion fabrics, which we sent off to our Shanghai workshop and from these they were able to closely match the purples, pinks and browns that the customer wanted.

The result was this wonderful cabinet, finished in cream lacquer both outside and in, with the wonderful dancing butterflies surrounded on the outer frames of the cabinet with flowers. The colours worked beautifully, with the gold leaf picked out as the sunlight catches the cabinet in the day. As the size of the TV meant that our usual retractable doors would have been too big and heavy for the hinges, we instead added ‘bi-folding’ doors, which fold back on themselves when the cabinet is open – a very neat solution. The cabinet also has a pull out shelf for the TV to sit on, so that the screen can pull out flush with the doors when open.

The customer received the cabinet a few weeks ago and was delighted – in fact you can read her comments at the top of the ‘testimonials’ page of our website. She also sent us a couple of the photos shown here of the cabinet in its new home, along with a detail of the butterfly paintings.

If you would like to discuss having a similar piece made, or any other ‘made to order’ item then give me a call on 0800 0886800 or contact us through the website.

James