Two Generations in the Shop: How the Sartor Family Runs Metros Wood

Most cabinet shops grow until the principal is no longer building. The shop hires sales staff, project managers, designers, and a production crew, and the founder ends up running a business rather than a craft. The work the shop produces drifts away from what the founder knew how to make. Eventually the shop is named after a person who has not built a cabinet in five years, and the work is built by people the founder has never met.

We did not do that. The shop has stayed small on purpose. Sergio Sr. is at a saw or a drafting table most days. Sergio Jr. is in the shop or on a job site. Marny coordinates the clients. That is the team. We do not have a sales department because we do not need one (most of our work comes from referrals), and we do not have a separate design department because Sergio Sr. is the designer.

This piece is about why we kept it that way and what it means for the work.

Sergio Sartor Sr., Founder and Creative Director

Sergio Sr. is the designer behind every Metros Wood project, with 35 years of experience in fine cabinetry and architectural woodwork. He founded the shop. He sets the design direction for every project that comes through it. The design comes from his hands: measured drawings done by him, shop drawings done by him, material and finish decisions made by him.

This is the central decision the shop is built around. There is no project Sergio Sr. has not designed. There is no detail he has not signed off on. When a homeowner or a designer asks “who designed this?” the answer is one name, and that name is also the name of the person who built it. The design decisions and the build decisions are made by the same person, in the same shop, on the same project.

The reason this matters is structural. Design decisions made by a designer who does not build are decisions that may not be buildable, or that may be buildable only at high cost. Design decisions made by someone who builds are decisions that have already been engineered for fabrication. The drawings come from the same hands that will hold the saw. The proportions account for material thicknesses. The details account for joinery. The shop drawings are not a translation step. they are the design itself.

It also means the design is consistent. Joinery before fasteners. Proportion before ornament. Restraint before embellishment. Finish as part of the construction. These are not marketing claims at our shop. They are the assumptions Sergio Sr. starts every project from. They run through every project that comes out of the shop because the same person designs every project.

Sergio Sartor Jr., Vice President of Operations

Sergio Jr. was raised in the family business. He runs operations across the shop, from project intake through fabrication, finishing, and install. The work moves from Sergio Sr.’s drawings to the shop floor under Sergio Jr.’s coordination. Materials get ordered. Schedules get set. The crew works through fabrication. The install gets scheduled and walked.

Sergio Jr. also leads business development and the firm’s growth. He coordinates directly with designers, architects, and trade partners on every project we take on.

The other thing Sergio Jr. brings is the modern operational layer the shop runs on. CAD-based shop drawings. Project management software. Material tracking. Schedule coordination across multiple concurrent projects. None of this changes the craft. It changes the predictability and the communication around the craft. Homeowners know where their project is at any given moment because Sergio Jr. has set up the systems to track it.

Marny Sartor, Director of Client Relations

Marny coordinates the client relationship. She handles the initial inquiry, the consultation scheduling, and the communication through the project. She is the calm voice when something needs explaining. The designer or the architect typically deals with both Sergio Jr. and Marny. Sergio Jr. on the work, Marny on the schedule and the client coordination.

The reason Marny’s role matters is that custom cabinetry projects involve a lot of communication. Material selections. Finish decisions. Hardware approvals. Schedule shifts when other trades run long or short. Site visits. Punch-list discussions. In a larger shop, all of this gets handed off to a project manager who does not know the homeowner. In our shop it stays with Marny, who does. The relationship is consistent through the project. The homeowner does not have to re-explain themselves to a new face every six weeks.

Why we stayed small

A larger shop could take more work. A larger shop could turn projects faster. A larger shop could have a sales department and a marketing budget and a showroom on Indiantown Road.

We chose not to. The reasons are specific:

Sergio Sr. designs everything. That is the value. If we scaled, Sergio Sr. would not be designing everything. He would be reviewing other people’s drawings. The work would no longer be his. We would no longer be able to tell a designer or a homeowner “Sergio Sr. designs every project personally” because it would not be true.

The install crew is the build crew. That is the second value. If we scaled, we would have to hire dedicated installers separate from the build crew, and the accountability split that we explicitly avoid would creep in. Same crew, design through install, only works at small scale.

Referrals are the channel. Most of our work comes from past clients, designers we have worked with, and the builders who have built around our cabinetry. That channel works because the work is consistent and the people who refer us know what they are referring. If we scaled, the consistency would degrade and the referrals would slow.

By appointment is the cadence. Consultations are by appointment. The shop is open by appointment. The conversation is one-on-one. That works for the kind of homeowner we serve and for the kind of designer who works with us. It does not work at volume.

There is a market for the larger shop with the showroom and the sales department. We are not in that market. The market we serve is homeowners and designers who want one cabinetmaker, one designer, one install crew, and one phone number for the duration of the project. That is what we built the shop to deliver, and the shape of the team is the way we deliver it.

Where it goes from here

Two generations is two. Sergio Sr. is 35 years deep in the work. Sergio Jr. is well into his second decade. The shop is set up to keep doing what it does for the foreseeable future.

If you are considering a project (a kitchen, a primary bath, an architectural package, a one-off piece), the team you would work with is the team described above. Contact us to schedule a consultation. We are by appointment.

Related: About the shop · For Designers and Architects