Do-it-yourself home carpentry workshop in the garage, at the dacha - we describe it in detail

Small business experts are seeing growing interest in businesses that can be started at home or in the garage with a small start-up investment. There are entrepreneurs who would like to make products for sale with their own hands or with a small number of faithful assistants. This is explained by the unsuccessful experience of hiring unscrupulous workers.

An effective way to make money on “golden hands” is to open a “carpentry” business. But before you start starting a business, you should definitely draw up a competent business plan for a carpentry workshop. This is already a big step towards financial success.

1. Analysis of the market and target audience 2. What products does the carpentry workshop produce? 3. Professional skills and production technology 4. How to choose a room for carpentry 5. Personnel 6. Carpentry workshop equipment 7. Advertising 8. Total costs and payback period 9. How to open a carpentry workshop: step-by-step plan 10. Business risks 11. Conclusion

Market and target audience analysis

15 years ago, plastic windows and doors stamped from PVC and rolled steel flooded into the Russian building materials market, ruining numerous carpenters. However, recently the production index of wood products has been steadily increasing, not only in our country, but also abroad.

Today wooden window blocks are in demand. According to this indicator, the level of 700 thousand square meters has been exceeded in the Russian Federation. meters. For other carpentry products, more than 1 million cubic meters were produced and sold. meters. Consumers are striving for environmental standards and are increasingly trusting plastic products. If in 2010 87% of residents called metal-plastic windows a good choice, then in 2021 this figure dropped to 74%. That is, now the halo of potential customers for carpentry products makes up a quarter of the adult population and continues to grow.

Which assortment to choose

The products offered by carpentry shops are extensive. Highlight:

• entrance and interior doors
• window blocks
• furniture: sofas, cabinets, tables, etc.
• numerous small items for the kitchen
• souvenir products
• Kids toys

The best option at the beginning of an entrepreneurial career is to choose one or several areas, and then expand.

Doors and windows are products from the category of constant demand. Wooden window blocks are being replaced by plastic, but wood is still in great demand today due to its quality.

The production of kitchen utensils is a profitable business with mass demand and a large assortment.

In this direction you can engage in production:

• 
  wooden coasters for hot and cold

• cutting boards
• rolling pins, napkin holders, bread bins
• containers for spices
• stands for cutlery, spatulas, etc.

If you add decorative elements to your inventory, you can sell them as souvenirs.

The most attractive direction in this area is the production of gingerbread rolling pins/boards with recesses and convexities in the form of:

• patterns
• animals
• fruit

Souvenir products made of wood are popular - from numerous magnets to carved boxes. Many manufacturers sell “Knock on Wood” amulets. It is made from birch logs or boards, and then decorated with birch bark.

There's no point in talking about furniture. You can produce:

• chairs
• benches
• tables
• cabinets
• chests of drawers, etc.

Children's toys made of wood are highly valued among the population because they are environmentally friendly and have a high level of durability.

Products are made cheaper by applying paint. Without the use of paint and varnish, products for children are expensive, but you need to achieve the smoothest possible surface.

Important: the production of children's toys requires a certificate.

What products does the carpentry workshop produce?

The carpentry workshop carries out deep processing of wood, turning it into a product ready for installation. Frequently ordered products include:

• window blocks for double-glazed windows;
• entrance/interior doors and decks to them;
• flights of stairs;
• verandas and gazebos (disassembled);
• antique furniture and for baths;
• architectural and finishing wood products;
• boats, carts, sleighs.

The production of wooden products with low added value (such as boards, linings, bars, block houses, decking) can be afforded by large wood processing industries. A small carpentry workshop cannot withstand competition with them.

Wood products that are in demand

The good thing about carpentry business is that you can start small. Then there will be no need for large start-up investments. A utility room or even your own garage would be quite suitable. You can work yourself (provided, of course, that you are good at carpentry) or hire one or two assistants. If things go well, nothing will stop you from expanding the business later.

Ongoing costs for materials are not as high as some other types of business, and you can charge whatever price you want, within reason. The client is unlikely to bargain for beautiful, high-quality products.

A huge number of objects can be made from wood, namely:

1. Furniture . This is the first thing that comes to mind. However, it will be difficult for a small carpentry workshop to compete with large furniture factories. Not only do they offer the buyer a wide variety, but the price of their products will be lower anyway. However, there are no hopeless situations and a creative master will help to produce an exclusive product according to a special design. It is also quite possible that the client will have special requirements and wishes, something that cannot be found in stores.
2. Windows and doors. The situation here is the same - high competition. In addition, doors and windows do not give much room for imagination. But you can try.
3. Gazebos . Despite the same saturation of the market, you can get creative here. Your own design, carved finish, sizes at the request of the client.
4. Stairs for private houses. Many companies also produce them, but still the design, size, and special wishes of the customer give hope that they will still find their client.
5. Small items and souvenirs. There are many more opportunities here. You can make boxes, wooden toys, clothes hangers, key holders, candlesticks, dishes, cutting boards, picture and photo frames and much more. Wood brings comfort to the house and there will always be lovers of such things. The problem is that small things have the same price and how much you can earn on them is not entirely clear. It might be better to make one cabinet and get paid well for it.

This list can be continued almost endlessly: fences and gates, street benches and benches, bath furniture, parquet and decorative elements, and much more.

But there is one big and fat plus. If your product doesn’t work for some reason, you can always switch to another type. To do this, you do not need to re-equip the workshop and invest additional money in it.

Professional skills and production technology

Whether the owner of a private carpentry works himself or hires carpenters, in any case he needs to know his business. And although those who are well versed in woodworking open their workshops, specialized books will help deepen their knowledge, for example, “An Illustrated Guide to the Production of Carpentry and Furniture Products” by S. Shumega and “Carpentry” by G. Kulebakin. L. Hayrapetyan’s reference book will help with wood glues and methods of their use.

A carpentry shop owner must also be able to read complex blueprints and learn PowerShape and CorelDRAW programs for 3D product modeling and control of CNC woodworking machines, respectively. As for professional skills, special knowledge and skills are required. Even something as simple as cutting with a circular saw requires good preparation. You also need to be able to plane edges for gluing and mill grooves with high precision.

Andrey Sivov, the owner of the carpentry shop, told the EquipNet.ru portal that, in addition to windows, he had to make complex furniture for a restaurant, a real carriage, an “onion” for a rural church and much more. That is, he dealt with a fairly wide range of orders.

Nuances of carpentry

As always and everywhere, carpentry has its drawbacks.

• You will have to work hard and constantly improve your skills and come up with product designs.
• Your own business is by no means a job at will and the opportunity to suddenly take a day off. On the contrary, it is constant, daily work. Therefore, only a hardworking master can achieve success in this business.
• You will have to compete with large factories that have flooded the market with their goods. It won't be easy. Therefore, you will have to spend a lot of time and effort promoting your business, making a name and reputation for yourself.

To achieve the success of the workshop, you will need to think carefully about the range of products that will be in demand and the pricing policy. You may have to hire a separate person to find clients.

How to choose a room for carpentry

If an entrepreneur decides to work alone or with a couple of assistants, you can limit yourself to what you have. A small carpentry workshop requires a warm room with forced ventilation with an area of ​​20 to 40 square meters. meters. It must, of course, meet fire safety standards. The fact that they are betting on their own or small rented premises is explained by the unstable market, which comes to life in the summer and stagnates in the winter.

If a businessman’s goals are more ambitious, he needs to open a full-fledged production facility with a warehouse and drying facility. True, the starting investments in the second case are already serious. A detailed business plan for a carpentry shop should be developed with calculations and design at the very first stage. This work can be carried out by experienced consulting companies that are able to calculate the optimal business process.

“Most often, pensioners or people over 40 open small workshops in basements or garages. Fortunately, sound and heat insulating materials allow this. The main thing is that you don’t have to pay rent,” Andrey Sivov shared his observations. – A carpentry shop with several dozen workers is a serious business with multimillion-dollar investments. The most desperate novice businessmen who are confident in large and stable orders are going to this business.”

Ways to sell and promote carpentry products

It is no secret that the traditional formats of carpentry workshops are at a clear disadvantage in terms of sales today. As a rule, they are located on the outskirts of cities and in industrial zones, where no one sees their activities, and the owners, who managed to find some kind of regular clientele, do not always care about promotion and modern methods of communication with the audience.

In the meantime, no matter what horrors and economic crises frighten us from all sides through the media, the number of target audiences that can bring good income to carpentry workshops is gradually growing. Pay attention to the pace of suburban construction, the emergence of new cottage villages, people who are interested in buying garden furniture and high-quality wooden products for the home. These people want to furnish their homes with maximum comfort and make them unique at the same time. Therefore, it is good if your workshop is located in full view of the target audience and is imprinted on their memory. It shouldn’t just be convenient to get to the workshop, people should see what you do. A good location will help in developing and achieving the “word of mouth” effect. According to the experience of the masters, a person who visits a workshop live almost 100% becomes its client.

Ideally, the workshop owner should try to cast the maximum number of “fishing rods” in all channels that can contribute to sales growth.

Ways to reach clients:

• direct sales through personal communication/calls;
• construction/furniture stores where you can go and offer your products for sale;
• online stores;
• social networks - maintaining groups on VKontakte, Facebook, Instagram, etc.;
• free online classifieds sites;
• visiting thematic exhibitions and fairs and participating in them with exhibiting samples of work;
• posting advertisements in areas where the target audience lives;
• business card website with descriptions of services and products, prices and photographs.

If some methods of reaching clients are quite passive (for example, publishing advertisements) and require one-time efforts (creating a business card website), then others, for example, social networks, will require constant support and time. Therefore, it will be good if you get an assistant who will monitor these issues. Expenses for promotion can also include exhibition samples for presentations and exhibitions, custom photographs of finished products, and printing of consumable promotional products, such as business cards.

Mikhail Semynin

(c) www.openbusiness.ru - portal of business plans and guides for starting a small business
10/05/2018
All materials by tag: carpentry shop

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It would be more correct to classify a full-fledged carpentry shop as a medium-sized business. Its discovery justifies itself only when it is possible to organize continuous production of, for example, window blocks or doors. However, large developers, for technological reasons, prefer plastic windows and factory doors, despite the growing popularity of wood. Although working from home simplifies the carpentry business, there are successful examples of small carpentry shops employing 5-6 people. At the same time, the entrepreneur focused on working with contracts and searching for orders. For carpentry production you will need the following workers:

The wage fund amounts to 375 thousand rubles. If you add personal income tax, contributions to the pension fund and other taxes, then you need to have 500,000 rubles for only one month of work, while reaching the designed capacity can take six months.

If you focus on carpentry markets for one-time contracts, which exist in any locality, it is reasonable to start alone. Then, when starting out, you don’t have to put anything into the salary fund: as much as you earned, that’s what you received.

Calculation of profitability in a business plan

Suppose an entrepreneur opens a workshop for the production of windows and doors. To do this, they hired several employees and rented specialized premises. Workload – 50%.

Table 3: one-time and monthly costs.

The total financial costs amounted to 568 thousand rubles.

Table 4: production diagram.

Profitability:

• total income from wholesale sales of products – 480 thousand rubles.
• expenses (production and non-production) – 388 thousand rubles.
• net income – 92 thousand rubles.
• profitability – from 15%

Employees can spend the remaining period on making furniture for individual orders, bringing in an additional monthly income of 100-150 thousand rubles.

The payback period for investments is from six months.

Video about furniture production:

With a small starting capital, you can open a small workshop with an initial investment of 100 thousand rubles:

• equipment costs – 70 thousand rubles.
• purchase of raw materials – 20 thousand rubles.
• monthly rent for production premises is 10 thousand rubles.

With an average monthly income of 30 thousand rubles, the initial investment can be recouped in a period of 4 months.

Carpentry workshop equipment

For high-quality woodworking, you need to buy a wood moisture meter. This will allow you to purchase material with the moisture content required by GOST 24700-99 and avoid fire-hazardous drying. Such devices are calibrated for different types of wood: birch, pine, beech. Pocket models can be purchased for 1 thousand rubles, higher quality moisture meters cost about 10 thousand rubles.

Of course, you will need hand and power tools. Its cost for a workshop with 3 carpenters can reach 50-70 thousand rubles. What you need to buy is well described in “Carpentry” by G. Kulebakin.

You will also need machines, or at least one combined unit, which has a sawing section, a jointing unit, a thicknessing unit, a milling section and a tenoning carriage. The machine does not take up much space, is optimal for a small room, and has a relatively low price tag of 220 thousand rubles. Plus, it would be nice to order a CNC wood milling machine, but you need to take into account that a good model sells for 500 thousand and more.

To equip a small carpentry shop with 3 employees with the necessary equipment, you need to reserve 300 thousand rubles.

Package of documents

Table 1: package of documents for registration of individual entrepreneurs and LLCs.

To register a company, you must contact the tax authority at the place of business activity.

In order for clients to appear, the owner of a carpentry shop, even if he works alone, must devote time and money to advertising. Otherwise, potential buyers simply will not know about the services. Promoters and handing out flyers are unlikely to help. It is easier and more effective to express yourself in electronic media. Every city or town has a local administration portal where a section has been created for free advertisements. Advertising on building materials databases is most effective. At the entrance to a construction market or lumberyard, you should rent a few square meters for a stand. Display your products at the stand. Then you can expect calls to appear within a few days.

How to attract buyers

You can use different advertising methods to attract customers. The most effective of them are:

• Booklets and leaflets. They can be made in the form of a mini-catalog of products indicating prices, contacts and addresses where you can contact. This method of advertising is one of the most effective, since potential buyers can immediately familiarize themselves with the assortment (or the most popular products of the workshop) and make a decision.
• Advertising in the media. Here you need to take care of an advertising campaign on local television, radio, newspapers and magazines. Which media to attract depends on the budget allocated for business promotion.
• Internet advertising. This is another effective way to quickly reach potential clients. To do this, you need to open your own website, place a product catalog on its pages and make it possible to place an online order. You can get the greatest return from your website by running contextual advertising in Yandex.Direct. Also, don’t ignore social networks, where you can create an official workshop group, advertise it and get even more clients.

Total costs and payback period

For a workshop that a single master opened in his garage, you will need from 100 to 400 thousand rubles, depending on the type of equipment purchased. This will include advertising costs. A small amount of start-up costs predetermines interest in this business.

If you rent premises in an industrial complex, you must take into account at least another three months of payment for “square meters”, as well as payments for utilities and security. That is, you need to add an additional 120 thousand rubles. If you are going to hire 2 assistants, you should increase the starting investment by another 100 thousand rubles.

Joinery products, as a rule, are sold with a high added value - about 40%. With a successful start, the investment will pay off in one warm season - that is, in 6-7 months.

For a large carpentry shop, the situation looks different. The payback period depends on the size of the business: the larger the production, the further the break-even point is from the start - but the higher the income. We give approximate guidelines in the table:

Is it necessary to hire workers for a carpentry shop?

At the initial stage, while the volumes are small, it is easier and faster for the master to act alone. However, this does not mean that no hired force will ever be useful to you. Woodworkers usually require helpers for rough work or apprentices. They may carry boards, jointer, remove shavings and debris, or perform other light duties. The labor force is usually teenagers looking for summer work or young people.

It is worth noting that experienced carpenters are usually in no hurry to grow a full-fledged replacement for themselves. And their fears are understandable: there is a great risk of turning a student into a competitor who can steal clients for himself. Therefore, the matter is often limited to auxiliary workers with negotiated wages.

Please note that the average salary of a carpenter in Russia at the time of writing is about 38 thousand rubles, in Moscow and St. Petersburg - about 54.5 thousand rubles. Therefore, if you are absolutely sure that your net income will not differ much from these figures, think again about the advisability of opening your own workshop. Today the word “business” is very popular, but with such low turnover, being hired will have many more advantages compared to sailing on your own. In this case, it makes more sense to continue producing wooden products as a part-time job and hobby, gradually gaining experience and a client base.

Average salary level for the professions “joiner/carpenter”, “joiner/carpenter assistant”, rub.

*according to advertisements on the Avito website 09/12/2018

If you have the idea of ​​opening a carpentry shop, but you are not going to work in it yourself, then the chances of finding a free carpenter who will work for you are close to zero. All masters with experience, as a rule, are employed and have a good income, and masters “worse and cheaper” often abuse alcohol or have experience in places not so remote and, let’s say, lost to society. In this case, it will be easier and more rational for you to place your orders from existing workshops and pay for their work, and then sell the finished products.

How to open a carpentry workshop: step-by-step plan

Since most entrepreneurs start alone or with relatives (for example, with a son or brother), it is for this format that we will write the sequence of actions for opening a carpentry business:

1. Register as an individual entrepreneur if you plan to hire no more than 2 assistants, or as an LLC to open a carpentry shop with several dozen workers.
2. Find a place for a carpentry workshop. If you choose a garage or basement of a house, carry out fire safety measures in accordance with the law. If you decide to rent the premises, enter into an appropriate agreement.
3. Purchase and install equipment. It is logical to purchase wood for a specific order.
4. Make samples of goods and place them as advertising in construction markets and lumber yards. Tell about yourself in local electronic media. This way you will be able to find clients.

Where to start a carpentry business

A carpentry workshop has a low profitability of 25-30%, so the probability of destroying it is negligible. Thanks to this, the likelihood of bankruptcy or employment at a loss is significantly reduced.

Important: if there is a high level of demand, you should not expect quick income. The minimum payback period varies from 8 to 10 months.

To get started, you must go through several mandatory steps:

1. 
   Register your business with the tax authority.

2. Select and rent a premises for organizing a workshop - if it is available, the initial costs are reduced.
3. Purchase the necessary equipment and raw materials.
4. Organize a promotional event.
5. Find sales points.

These steps are fundamental, without which it is impossible to start work.

Business risks

Although many articles on the RuNet say that a carpentry workshop as a business is doomed to success, in reality this is far from the case. On the Internet you can find advertisements for the sale of almost new woodworking machines, and from the first owners. Reason: “due to lack of demand.” Regardless of what environmentalists say, PVC windows and doors dominate the market.

The carpentry business is characterized by seasonality. Window blocks, flights of stairs and garden gazebos are usually in demand in the summer. The main risks of business in carpentry workshops are a weak order market and strong competition from large players.

What is the best way to position your products today?

The second question, which is also better to think about in advance, is the question of a unique selling proposition and the question of quality. To make your products different from what the mass market offers, first of all pay attention to the material. Firstly, what kind of tree will it be? What colors and supplies will you use? What will be the design of your products?

The most popular types of wood for furniture according to Yandex user requests

*according to Yandex Wordstat as of September 12, 2018

If we talk about the furniture segment, then according to search queries, the most popular wood for it is pine. It is almost five times more popular than oak. At the same time, experienced joiners and carpenters advise not to be too deluded by pine. Firstly, well-dried pine is difficult to find. The properties of this wood are such that it is difficult to paint well, leaves a lot of dirt on the instruments, and as a result, leads to costs.

100 most popular furniture colors according to Yandex user requests

*according to Yandex Wordstat data as of September 11, 2018.

Secondly, products made from the most popular wood have a price corresponding to their mass production. Let's say, teak furniture will cost several times more than pine furniture. That is, by choosing an unusual material, you can significantly increase the profitable component, which is included in the price of the finished product. One way or another, the quality of your furniture products will depend on the components. You can work along the path of maximum cost reduction by purchasing cheap components from China, or give preference to more expensive but reliable suppliers of accessories. Austrian, German and Italian manufacturers of accessories that have representative offices in Russia and actively promote their products are considered recognized leaders in the quality of fittings.

Representatives of the carpentry business are increasingly becoming supporters of the fact that today handmade products need to be positioned as expensive. The market situation has changed diametrically. If earlier everything that was produced by carpenters was bought hand and foot, and there was a constant demand for carpentry work, now, in order to survive, work on quality, not quantity. As with many other areas of business, today's woodworkers are increasingly required to master sales and marketing.

Dynamics of popularity of the search query “carpentry work” from 2004 to 2021*

*according to Google Trends service

The peculiarity of the carpentry business is that no one will tell you exactly what price you should charge for a table, chair or bedside table, because there are no average prices in the carpentry business. The modern approach is this: you calculate the price of the materials, paints, varnishes and components used, and then multiply the result several times. And exactly how much depends on how expensive the master positions himself and on the level of his skill. As a rule, a markup of 100% is not justified; today, manual labor can and should be charged a much higher price.