small space specialists

In a delightful country setting a short distance from Kumeu township west of Auckland lies Variant Spaces, a small kitchen and custom cabinetry making business with a difference. Set up by owners Jake and Kasia about three years ago their main stream products are custom made kitchen cabinetry, wardrobes, stairs and benchtops not only for the wider market but particularly the Tiny House market.

Jake, a qualified cabinet and furniture maker, manufactures most of these items to order while Kasia makes a wide range of boutique products: everything from Pulley Laundry Racks, clothes racks, market displays down to plant holders and pegboards. Interesting products include Tiny House storage stairs, and a folding wall table. The business has grown over time with much of their boutique range of products being marketed and sold online globally and with this has come the need to increase production capacity.

“About six months ago we started looking around for a flatbed router which would enable us to produce a wide range of shapes especially for our kitchen cabinetry as well as for all the different shapes that Kasia needed for her range of laundry racks, market displays and so on.” Jake recalls. They came across Proform CNC Ltd. “We took an interest in their flatbed Fusion CNC Router ATC 25/13 model as it had all we wanted and a small footprint.”

Luck would have it that only a few kilometres away was another business that had just the machine they were considering. “We had a good look at the machine in operation and were taken both by the automatic tool change unit and the machine’s versatility.” comments Kasia. “It was really a no brainer for us and we bought one. The most impressive thing for us was the impeccable customer and after sales service from Rob and his team from Proform. They had the machine installed and commissioned including the ducting in just two days and with a couple of days training we were up and running.”

The router is a gantry style machining centre that they are currently using for processing solid wood, and ply. However, it can also process plastics, MDF, aluminium and composite materials. It has a user friendly onboard PC using a Windows 10 operating system. Jake and Kasia use Enroute software to programme the shapes they want.

The tool rack, with a maximum 12 tool capacity, allows for a wide range of applications. The table size is 2440 x 1220mm allowing for standard board sizes to be processed . “The router is versatile and efficient. If I really wanted to I could process up to fifty boards in a full day. We were outsourcing some of Kasia’s shapes which we can now do ourselves” says Jake. Both he and Kasia are now looking forward to growing their business. “Production capacity was a looming issue for us and now we can grow and look forward to one day getting a bigger machine!” Kasia exclaims. For more information contact Jake or Kasia at Variant Spaces via email: info@variantspaces.com, on Instragram @variantspaces or visit www.variantspaces.com