For the past several years, we’ve built custom furniture out of one small shop. It was where, still as Pompous Fox Wood Co., we learned what we were capable of — and, more recently, where we ran up against the limits of what a small space can hold. This year is big for us, we rebranded and, as Acht Studio, this summer, we moved into a new shop in Moonstone, Ontario. It changes what we can take on and how consistently we can deliver it.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!Where we are now
Our new shop is at 245 Moonstone Road E in Oro-Medonte, about 20 minutes from our previous Barrie location. It’s a purpose-outfitted facility, and it’s fully operational: our whole team is working out of it, on live projects, today.
Nearly three times the space
The old shop was 1,700 square feet of usable space, shared between fabrication, assembly, finishing, and storage. Projects queued up behind each other because there was nowhere else for them to go. The new shop gives us roughly 4,500 square feet of dedicated shop floor, plus a separate office, lunchroom, and mechanical room that used to eat into our working area.
Equipment that wasn’t an option before
A bigger footprint let us bring in equipment we simply didn’t have room for in Barrie:
- A wide belt sander, which we estimate will save 50-plus hours of hand-sanding labour a month — hours that go back into precision work instead
- An edge sander and a larger CNC, expanding what we can machine in-house
- A clamp rack, keeping large glue-ups organized and consistent instead of taking over floor space
- Individual, dedicated workbenches for each of our furniture makers, instead of everyone sharing limited bench space
A showroom!
The old shop had no real space to receive clients or show finished work. The new location includes a 1,000 square foot showroom, purpose-built for exactly that. Designers and clients can now walk through finished pieces, see and feel material and finish options in person, and have real conversations about a project before it’s built — not just over email and photos.
Room to grow into
Beyond the shop and showroom, the building includes a 1,500 square foot end unit we’re renting out for now, with the option to expand into it as the studio grows. We built in room to scale rather than outgrowing this space the way we outgrew the last one.
What this means for your projects
None of this changes what Acht Studio makes or how we make it — custom furniture, sustainably built to the same high standards as always. What it changes is our capacity to take on more work at once, increase our capabilities, and give you and your clients a real space to see the work before it arrives on site.
We’re still the same team. We just finally have the room to do the work properly.
If you’d like to visit the new shop or talk through a project:
