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Greycork furniture is the reason you might never shop Ikea again. It’s certainly the reason you’ll throw away the seven little Allen wrenches in your junk drawer. Greycork is self-assembled furniture that requires no tools, looks amazing, and can be easily disassembled when you move. In other words, it’s everything. We recently chatted with Greycork’s CEO John Humphrey about the Greycork story. 

What was the ah-ha moment that inspired Greycork? (Please tell me it was in the middle of assembling an Ikea bed)

Good question. For Greycork, the ah ha moment came when two streams of inspiration collided: First, I didn’t care too much for the furniture in my home – it was a collection of generic furniture I had accumulated over four years or so. I had moved homes six months prior and thought my poor experience moving furniture, and also how frustrating it was to set up the new furniture I had bought. Second, because I had grown up in manufacturing, I was thinking about redesigning furniture so it could be manufactured in a way that would make it easier to ship, then easy for a user to assemble without any tools. I built a prototype coffee table over a weekend, knew it would be feasible to make a product like this at scale, and thought how there wasn’t a furniture brand with which I identified. The idea for Greycork was born.

What’s the best reaction you’ve seen to Greycork so far?

Here’s a great email I received just today:

Has furniture design always been a focus of yours?

No. My background is in manufacturing, I grew up working on assembly lines at my family’s factory from age 11. Therefore, it was critical for me to join with Bruce and Alec, my two cofounders with design backgrounds from RISD.

Who do you think is the ideal Greycork customer? Who would benefit the most from these designs and ease of assembly?

The ideal user is either anyone who is about to furnish a new home, or anyone who looks around his/her home and feels he could be more satisfied with the design and quality of his furniture. It’s also for the people who realize they’ll likely move again before finding the home in which they’ll settle permanently. With Greycork, you can have a beautiful aesthetic and high-quality materials for a low cost, and it’s all paired with 4 minute tool-less assembly and easy transportation from home to home. 

Greycork’s Indiegogo campaign recently achieved its funding goal (congrats!) and we can’t wait to see what’s next for this innovative company. 

UPDATE 9/2/15: Greycork is now at  $125k raised  in just over three weeks, making it the most funded furniture company  of all time  on Indiegogo! Congrats to the team!