Why We're Building Patina

I started Patina because I lived the problem. As the founder of Middlewest Studio, I've sourced over 100 products per project for years — and the process has always been painfully manual. Spreadsheets, bookmarks, vendor catalogs, word-of-mouth. The tools that exist were built for mass-market retail, not for designers who care about provenance and craft.

Patina is what happens when you build a furniture platform from the designer's perspective first. Not another marketplace with infinite scroll and sponsored placements. A curated space where every piece has a story, every maker is vetted, and the intelligence layer learns from how professional designers actually think about space, material, and form.

The Three Problems

For designers: Sourcing takes 40% of project time. There's no single place to discover artisan furniture that meets the quality bar our clients expect. We end up recommending the same 20 brands because discovery is so broken.

For consumers: "Style quizzes" and algorithmic recommendations give you what's popular, not what's right. The best furniture decisions come from understanding materials, craftsmanship, and how a piece ages in a space. That knowledge lives in designers' heads — we're making it accessible.

For makers: Small-batch artisans can't compete with the marketing budgets of mass manufacturers. Their work is exceptional, but their reach is limited to local markets and trade shows. Patina gives them a direct channel to designers and discerning consumers who value what they make.

What We're Building First

We're starting with 200 founding members and 15 founding maker partners. This isn't a launch — it's a build. Founding members get to shape the platform alongside us: what features matter, which makers join, how the AI learns to recommend. We're building Patina with our community, not for them.

If you believe furniture should be chosen with intention — that the story behind a piece matters as much as its form — we'd love to have you in the founding circle.