No one likes complex instructions or that moment of dread after building a piece of furniture only to find too many remaining nuts and bolts.
Not even Stewart Junge, who considers himself fairly handy, especially after owning an Andover cabinet business for two decades.
So in the lull of work caused by the pandemic, Junge used his handyman skills to create furniture anyone could piece together.
Junge’s company, Landmark Finish, first pivoted to creating Plexiglas barriers that were laser-cut to piece together easily. Now as some pandemic restrictions wind down and the need for barriers subsides, Junge was creating a desk when his wife Deanna gave him the idea to skip the nuts and bolts and cut the wood in the same pattern as the plexiglas barriers.
The pattern of the cut wood creates the patent-pending “infinity joining system” to fit together and build stable and strong pieces of furniture from desks to tables, to bar carts to shelves and even a bed.
“You know those impossible puzzles vendors have at the fair? This is the puzzle you can get,” he said.
He put together the company’s flagship five-piece desk in under 30 seconds.
The easy assembly will help ensure these products are more sustainable, Deanna Junge said, explaining they can easily be broken down when people move or want to hide the furniture.
It works for both families who want to have desks for their children during the week but then want more living space on weekends, she explained. Also, she recalled her and her husband’s days of living in a 450-square-foot North End apartment where this kind of multi-purpose and easily concealable furniture would have been really helpful.
The Junges have renamed their company FiVo Design because of the new products, and are looking forward to selling them.
This also helps them with the worker shortage, which has hit the trades especially hard.
When creating custom cabinets it was highly specialized work and it was always hard to hire at the company. Now they are hoping because its a repetitive product it will be easier to train and retain talent.