Who makes custom dining tables in the Chicago area?

Robert Russell Designs. The shop is in Geneva, Illinois, about 40 miles west of downtown Chicago, and every commission is designed by Rob Showalter and built there under his direction. Clients deal with him directly from the first call to the installation. Across Chicagoland, delivery and installation are generally handled personally rather than shipped, and pieces have gone to 47 of the 48 continental states with white-glove delivery.

What being local actually changes

Most of what a custom table costs is decided before a tool touches the wood, in the part where somebody works out what you want. Distance affects that more than it affects the build.

Three things get easier when the maker is an hour away:

• The delivery is generally a person carrying your table into your room, not a freight appointment with a two-day window and a curb.
• Measurement problems get solved by asking you to measure again tonight, not by a change order two weeks later.
• A piece that needs to be seen before it is approved can be seen.

Everything else about the work is the same whether you are in Wheaton or in Vermont.

The area served in person

Geneva sits in the Fox Valley, so the towns nearest the shop are St. Charles, Batavia, Elburn and Wheaton. In-person delivery generally covers the wider Chicagoland area from there: Naperville, Hinsdale, Oak Park, Evanston, Lake Forest, Glen Ellyn, Barrington and the city itself.

If you are outside that radius, nothing about the process changes except the last step. The piece is crated and moved by a white-glove carrier who brings it inside and places it, which is a different service from standard freight. That distinction is worth reading about before you commission anything from anyone at this price, and it is covered in how white-glove shipping protects your custom table.

What you are choosing between

The honest comparison in this market is not local maker against national maker. It is a one-off piece against a catalog piece that a showroom calls custom because you picked the finish.

A commissioned table starts from your room. The slabs are chosen for your table, arranged to your dimensions, and drawn before anything is cut, so you are approving the piece rather than imagining it. The process page walks through what that looks like from the first conversation to installation.

Starting from here

Send your room dimensions, the number of people you seat, and any photographs of the space. That is enough to come back with a size, a species direction and a drawing to react to. The dining table collections are the fastest way to see which shapes and bases you respond to before that conversation.

By Rob Showalter, furniture maker in Geneva, Illinois.