| Method | Delivery Time | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Standard Shipping | 7–15 business days | Free on orders over $49 |
| Express Shipping | 3–7 business days | Calculated at checkout |
| Returns | 30-day return window | Money-back guarantee |
Mhalle ships to 150+ countries with tracked delivery, secure SSL-encrypted checkout and a 30-day money-back guarantee.
0 products
The first time you go through a custom furniture process, the lead time catches you off surprise. You assume it's like ordering a sofa from a catalog — pick the finish, wait eight weeks, done. What you don't account for is that every decisi
The first time you go through a custom furniture process, the lead time catches you off surprise. You assume it's like ordering a sofa from a catalog — pick the finish, wait eight weeks, done. What you don't account for is that every decision you defer to the maker becomes a decision you didn't make yourself, and you'll feel the weight of that when the table arrives and the apron sits two inches higher than your chairs allow. That gap — literally — is the most common reason made-to-order dining tables come back or get refused at delivery. Standard dining chair seat height runs between 17 and 19 inches. Standard apron clearance should be at least 10.5 inches from seat top to the underside of the table frame. Measure your chairs before you finalize anything.
Everyone fixates on the top — the wood species, the grain direction, the finish sheen. That's understandable. It's what you see. But the top is also the part of the table that's most forgiving over time. Solid wood moves; that's normal. A table that develops a hairline crack along a board joint after two winters isn't defective, it's wood behaving like wood. What doesn't forgive is a base that wasn't engineered for the span. A 96-inch top on an undersized trestle will develop perceptible flex at the center within a year of daily use — not wobble exactly, but a softness you'll feel when you set down a heavy pot. Ask specifically how the stretcher or cross-brace is sized for your table's length, not just its weight capacity.
With a piece like the Fragment Dining Table, the geometry of the base is doing structural and visual work simultaneously. That kind of design intention is worth understanding before you order. A base that looks minimal in a photograph may be minimal in section size too — which is fine if the joinery and hardware are doing their job, and a liability if they're not. Ask whether the joints are mechanical, glued, or both. Glue-only joints in a base that gets racked by guests leaning back in chairs are the first thing to show movement.
The finish sample you approve in a showroom is shot under controlled light and handled by maybe four people. Your table will be under warm tungsten at dinner, cold noon light on weekends, and touched by everyone who sits down. Matte and satin finishes hide fingerprints and minor scratches better than high-gloss, but they also show water rings more readily if they're not properly sealed. A good made-to-order shop will tell you what the finish is and how to maintain it. If they hand you a generic "wipe with a damp cloth" card, that's a signal.
Oil finishes — hardwax oil, pure oil — are easier to spot-repair than lacquer or conversion varnish, which is a real advantage over a table's life. The tradeoff is that they require periodic reapplication, roughly once a year under regular use. Some people find that maintenance satisfying; others find it a reason to return the table after two years when it starts to look dull. Know which type you are before you commit.
The common rule is 24 inches of table width per person per side. That's a minimum. If you serve family-style with platters down the center, you need 36 inches of width to eat comfortably without reaching across someone's plate. A 40-inch-wide table sounds generous until there are eight dishes on it and no one can reach the bread.
Length is where people underestimate consistently. A table that seats eight in the showroom seats six comfortably in your dining room once you account for sideboard clearance, chair pull-out, and the fact that you need at least 36 inches of walkway behind a pushed-in chair. If your room is tight, a 78-inch table is often more livable than a 94-inch table, even if the longer one "seats more" on paper.
Made-to-order furniture costs more and takes longer, and those are not the tradeoffs worth worrying about. The real tension is this: customization increases the chance of error because every variable is a decision, and decisions compound. A stock table has been prototyped, refined, and shipped hundreds of times. A custom one hasn't — yours is, in some meaningful sense, a prototype. The best shops have systems that catch dimensional errors before fabrication. The worst ones catch them at delivery. Ask what the revision process looks like if something arrives wrong. Not as a gotcha, just to understand how they handle it, because some shops do and some don't.
---
Quick checklist before you finalize your order