Built Art & Design 3516 Fremont Place N, 547-0655.

Furniture isn’t an impulse buy. Committing to a $1,000 coffee table or a $4,000 kitchenette set is a lot different from setting a couple hundred dollars aside for a painting. This is why custom-made-furniture showrooms in Seattle are few and far between, never mind those that showcase experimental work by up-and-coming designer/ builders. It’s no wonder: The material cost for furniture is very high, and most furniture builders don’t often have pieces lying about that they can pop into a store.

Add to this that opening a gallery, any gallery, is a pain in the ass. It’s usually born of a mixture of frustration (wanting to see work you’re not seeing elsewhere) and passion (believing the work deserves to not only be seen but sold) and takes planning, a few loans, and the willingness to give up your life as you know it. Keeping a gallery open is an even bigger pain in the ass. So when someone is brave enough to sign a four-year lease on a 1,200-square-foot space in an area not known for cheap rent and opens an alternative furniture showroom and art gallery, you can either admire or pity the person. After visiting the newly opened Built Art & Design in Fremont, I’m inclined toward admiration.

Nested alongside the M:pulse “Lifestyle Boutique” (whatever that means), Built carries furniture by local craftsmen, plus paintings, and features a monthly rotating exhibition along one of the walls. The paintings on view by relative unknowns are absurdly priced, particularly in relation to the nearby furniture (a $925 painting versus a $600 coffee table?). However, if this month is any indication, the rotating exhibitions might prove to be more compelling: Mariko Marrs’ minimalist color fields and Shannon Bowley’s botanical paintings are up through June.

Shane Michalik, the proprietor, is defining the scope of the items she’ll carry, but told me she’s leaning toward one-of-a-kind furnishings. A smart direction, considering that the furniture is far more interesting than most of the art. Seattle doesn’t lack for coffee-shop and retail-store walls for artists to show on, and a tight focus on specific content is how most galleries survive. No singular furniture style dominates; the focus seems to be on independent designers who don’t have the same kind of outlets for their work as visual artists.

Portland-based Rainy Lehrman finds hunks of wood and, with very little treatment, transforms them into functional art-objects. A low bench called “Crook of the Nape” is carved out of a single piece of spalted alder and simply sealed with clear varnish to show the wood’s black veins and buttery hue. The weirdest item in Lehrman’s suite is “Kit Kat,” a small molar-shaped stool made of maple cotton and stuffed with who knows what.

I can only imagine a few possible contexts for Jacob Ryder’s skateboard throne. Made of beaten and battered skateboard decks, it’s perfect for California poolsides or Colorado ski bum crash pads. The armrest planks can accommodate a friend on either side. Similarly, Jessica Lynch’s big square blue leather stool with images of the Gravitron silk-screened on it is party-ready for those times when you just can’t sit close enough to two or three other people. I’ve grown accustomed to seeing Chris McMullen’s giant, futile work-making sculptures and was surprised and glad to see a very functional and simple steel coffee table inlaid with granite.

There are a lot of independent designers in Seattle who are more familiar to each other than to the arts-going public, much less the general public. Built, therefore, fills a void.