Toronto is home to scores of gifted furniture designers turning out carefully-crafted pieces, from the modern to the fantastical, but a new firm appears to have carved itself a clever niche. Launched last fall,Coolican & Companybrands itself as the city's first small-batch contemporary furniture outfit

Where most Toronto-based furniture shops would either focus on making one-off custom pieces or larger-scale distribution, founder Peter Coolican writes via email, they believe themselves to be "the only makers in the city whose sole practice is producing limited run, modern, handmade furniture on speculation and available direct to consumer." Basically, it's higher quality than mass-production, but making several in one go - specifically, in editions of 12 - allows for a lower price over custom-built.

What that means for design lovers: Hand-built pieces with clean, gentle lines, made from Ontario-sourced black walnut and topped off with natural finishes. The first piece - thePalmerston stool- is on sale for $490, with 8 of 12 remaining. Check out a video of their workshop below.