Neighbor Wants to Help Create Your Living Room, Outdoors
American-Made Furniture Brand With a “California Approach”
Founder and CEO Blazona’s vision for the new direct-to-consumer furniture company was impeccable materials and high-quality craftsmanship — without cutting corners like many other furniture makers do. The brand executes this promise by taking what Blazona calls a “California approach” — that is, a focus on technology to show products and manage the customer experience from selection through manufacturing.
In addition to the tech-driven nature of the business, MadeRight also emphasizes sustainability — another fundamental tenet in keeping with the values and infrastructure in the brand’s headquarters state of California, a leader in sustainability efforts around the USA and beyond.
Manufacturing its product in California provides MadeRight an advantage over many other North American sofa manufacturers, which produce in facilities located in states like North Carolina, where sustainability is less built into the infrastructure or prioritized as highly.
MadeRight, responsibly sources wood, optimizes fabric cutting to reduce waste, repurposes fabric scraps, promotes sustainability throughout the supply chain, crafts locally, offers eco-friendly fabrics and encourages responsible disposal to minimize its overall environmental impact. And that makes these sofas and sectionals purchases that consumers can feel good about.
Quality from the Inside Out
Blazona explains that the durability and longevity of a sofa start with parts of its construction that consumers can’t even see: the materials on the inside. MadeRight focuses on quality materials and structure where it counts, with new cushion and foam combinations at the heart of its home furnishings built to last.
“I constantly ask myself, why did our parents' sofas not fall apart as quickly as ours? What’s changed in mass-produced sofas?”
- Blazona says.
For answers, he investigated materials and construction techniques and discovered where the makers of other direct-to-consumer sofas, specialty retail sofas, and overseas-produced sofas were cutting corners.
The brand offers a cushion package called California Cush, which he calls “the best of the best'' materials. These cushions utilize extra-premium foam sandwiching an inner metal coil spring to keep the cushion puffed up yet cozy and comfortable. It’s all wrapped with hypoallergenic down replacement material that is soft to the touch and outlasts down and feather constructions.
These thoughtful construction details translate to less wrinkling and cushion breakdown over time.
“This is a time-tested, old-world technique, forgotten about in modern-day, high-volume furniture manufacturers because it’s not friendly to manufacturing — and frankly, it’s more expensive to produce”
- he explains. But it’s MadeRight’s commitment to quality.
Unique Patterns for Precise Fit
MadeRight distinguishes itself from the typical larger sofa factory, which typically cuts fabrics using a single set of patterns by hand or automated machine; those factories use the same set of designs on all types of fabrics no matter what kind of stretch the material has. But although this approach is typical across the furniture industry, it isn’t ideal because all fabrics are fundamentally different. That’s why MadeRight does it differently.
“This is a huge problem in large manufacturing and is one of the reasons why sofas are either manufactured and pulled too tight, leaving a hard sit — or worse, not sized and pulled enough, which creates excessive wrinkling on cushions or bulging and ripples on the upholstered frame.”
So, instead, the MadeRight brand uses multiple patterns for every sofa — and fabric type — based on the stretch of that particular fabric.
“This technique has been used by small artisan-type upholstery facilities for decades but lost to the world of mass-produced DTC sofas and the factory-produced sofas of the specialty retailers because of cost-cutting measures”
- he says. “Frankly, they just don’t care like we do. This is just one technique we use to create a truly tailor-made and finely upholstered sofa.”
Bespoke American-Made Furniture
It can be challenging for consumers to identify their ideal color and texture selection from a website. But MadeRight seamlessly eliminates that pain point by sending out a full range of swatches for review via second-day air — at no cost to the customer and with just a few clicks. (And these are far from teeny scraps; instead, the brand dispatches swatches larger than most all other retailers, allowing potential customers the opportunity to truly experience the fabric color and feel.)
With swatches in hand, customers simply go to the product page and pick their size and color; the sofa photos on the site display in the color of their choice; a substantial range of sizes is available to suit any room and seating needs. Customers then pick the cushion types based on comfort and the longevity needed — and their made-to-order sofa is on its way. Great example: Venice Sofa.
(For Bay Area shoppers who prefer to see the looks in person, MadeRight is setting up an indoor/outdoor popup showroom at its Richmond office.)
Peace of Mind, Insured
For a small additional fee, customers can guarantee peace of mind with their handcrafted furniture purchase: MadeRight recently teamed up with a damage insurance company to offer protection policies against accidental damage-related costs. Blazona calls the new warranty a “game changer for many families worried about buying an expensive sofa because of careless kids, dads, and day-to-day accidents.”
“I'm trying to create a fun, truly transparent, and purposeful buying experience that doesn't leave you irritated and bummed out with your purchase once it arrives. Let's actually let the customer be the driver, do what’s right as people, and not worry about profits and margins exclusively. That will all come in good time: Happy customers drive a successful business.”
Classic Style Made in America
Sofa seating trends come and go, but MadeRight focuses on designs that stand the test of time. “It's a huge investment for the customer,” he acknowledges. Hence, the goal is to create a quality piece in a durable, timeless style that can eventually be updated with a new texture or color.
These days, home office, bedroom furniture, dining room furniture, living room furniture, and even outdoor furniture trends are all about “comfortable modernism.” This means lower-backed sofas, deeper seats, and lower seat heights. “This creates a better line of sight within the home and does not allow the sofa to overpower the room,” he says.
The brand is also adding bench-style seating to most of its custom furniture collections, which makes for an even cleaner look and feel when set amid other home decor and furnishings like coffee tables, loveseats, ottomans, nightstands, dressers, bed frames, side tables, recliners, bar stools, dining tables, dining sets, office furniture, and other solid wood furniture.
Overall, the brand offers the highest-quality sofas and sectionals in an expansive range of colors and shapes — but even its vast catalog is just a jumping-off point when it comes to the brand’s bespoke furniture-making capabilities. “If you don't see the shape and size that you want, shoot a quick email to us letting us know, and I bet we'll find a way to make it for you,” Blazona says.
“I will go way out of my way to help our customers — day or night — and create the best furniture-buying experience they've ever had.”
Quality Furniture Accessible to All
MadeRight creates high-end, custom-made sofas made in the USA alongside other beloved and family-owned hardwood furniture brands such as Vaughan-Bassett, Vermont Woods Studios, and Stickley, esteemed for their timeless woodworking.
But the brand isn’t just about creating the best American furniture for the privileged few. Given the emphasis on craftsmanship and construction for longevity, these sofas are investment pieces that can serve families for many years to come (all while staying out of landfills). “Why buy twice? This is the piece you sit on daily, yet it can still be an heirloom,” he says. “I spend more time on my sofa than anywhere in my house, whether working on my laptop, watching a game, or just spending some good old family time roughhousing with my kids.”
A 180-day return window, nearly unprecedented in the industry, makes the splurge-worthy purchase risk-free even for those on a budget. “No one does this,” he says, “But we do it because I believe in my product so much that you will fall in love with your new furniture the moment you get it — and have the same feeling 180 days later.”
