Assembler. Salary: $20,000 

You finish assembling your first wardrobe by yourself but get trapped inside. When the supervisor notices you're missing and rescues you, he applauds your accidental discovery of the design flaw. Thanks to your Inspector Clouseau-like instincts, the company avoids lawsuits from customers who have curious and adventurous children.

Materials Coordinator. Salary: $25,000 

After a couple years with no further mishaps, you get trained in cutting pieces and setting up machines. Eventually you oversee the entire process, from receiving the materials to placing orders. To satisfy your itch for actually building furniture, you set up a workbench in your garage, watch some DIY videos, and begin to design and build your own stuff.

Delivery Team Leader. Salary: $28,440 

Alongside being a leader, you get to repair and retouch high-end furniture. You figure out how to salvage furniture by, say, adding a matching gouge to the other side of the furniture so it looks like part of the original design. Your boss rewards you with a free ottoman, although it's missing a leg.

Furniture Designer. Salary: $35,000 

While delivering a nice entertainment center to a wealthy customer, you remark how cool it would be if they had a matching coffee table. No such piece exists, so you offer to build it. The customer loves it and commissions you to build a matching dining room table and chairs. You quit your job to focus full-time on your budding business.

Specialty Furniture Craftsman. Salary: $45,000 

Your fascination with puzzle boxes inspires a new line of armoires with hidden drawers and spaces. Your first exhibition lands you so many orders that you have a six-month backlog of people who pay thousands of dollars for your creations. Then there's that other list of customers who can't remember how to get into their hidden drawers. You'll call them back later.