No Two Pieces Are the Same
A live-edge coffee table isn't priced like furniture you'd find at a retail chain — because it isn't made like one. Every piece in our shop begins as a single, irreplaceable slab of wood: a specific tree, from a specific place, with grain and character that will never be exactly repeated. That origin shapes everything, including the price.
Here's what's actually behind the number.
The Wood
The slab is the soul of the piece. Our Salvaged Black Walnut Coffee Table starts with figured walnut sourced from trusted domestic mills — wood selected for its depth of grain, natural edge, and the kind of warmth that only comes from a tree that spent decades growing. The same standard applies to every species we work with: the Sycamore Coffee Table, the Hackberry Console Table, the Salvaged White Oak Coffee Table. Rare, character-rich hardwoods cost more because they genuinely are more — and we don't substitute.
The Labor
Live-edge work is slow by design. Flattening a slab, working through a full sanding progression, and applying a finish that will hold up to decades of daily use — none of it can be rushed without it showing. Every piece that leaves our shop reflects the time of someone who won't move to the next step until the current one is right. You can see that standard in something like the Rustic Ash Side Table or the Knotty Pine Sofa Table — pieces where the material does the talking and the craft stays out of the way.
The Base
The base is the piece's architecture. Whether it's a hand-welded steel frame or solid turned legs, we approach it with the same deliberateness as the top. Our White Oak Bench and Spalted Maple Bench are good examples — simple in form, considered in execution, built to carry the weight of the wood above them without competing with it.
The Finish
Every piece leaves our shop finished with Clean Armor Tabletop Finish — a commercial-grade coating chosen for its durability, clarity, and respect for the wood beneath it. It protects without masking. It performs without compromise. It is not the least expensive option, and that is precisely why we use it.
What You're Actually Buying
A Jaeger Design piece is not a transaction. It is an object made once, from a specific piece of wood, by hand, in our shop. It will not be replicated. It will not depreciate into irrelevance. Compared to high-end retail furniture manufactured overseas at scale, what we make is categorically different: local, considered, and built to outlast the trends that surround it.
Browse the full collection and find the piece that belongs in your space.
Thank you for reading this article, and I hope you've enjoyed it a little.
Brendan Jaeger, Jaeger Design LLC.