[chrisbro]

My wife and I have been slowly buying furniture for our house, and Etsy is our go-to. I don't know where else I can search for such a wide array of styles for things like desks and coffee tables, find exactly the style I want, and THEN get it custom-made to the dimensions I want. I really like the way it opens up smaller shops like that for higher-end purchases like furniture, and I've never had a bad experience despite buying items in the 4-digit range.

That being said, complete dumpster fire on the lower-priced items like this article is getting at. I really enjoy Etsy when it can deliver on its promise of opening up a marketplace of skilled artisans who otherwise would've have had a hard time getting started. Hope it can get back to that.

[kamarg]

There used to be a site for exactly this called custommade.com. Aside from a list of items that others have already made for you to browse, you could also put up a description of the project and let craftsmen contact you with questions or bids for the project.

I'm not entirely sure what happened but they ended up refocusing on strictly custom jewelry instead of custom whatever you want that someone else can make. It's really unfortunate because it was an excellent service with very talented makers and I haven't been able to find anything similar to replace it.

[chrisbro]

That sounds (sounded) awesome! As I was typing up my previous comment I was wondering if there are any other services out there that does this same sort of thing. Fingers crossed.