Case study

zlitego.pl

A solid-wood furniture shop: Stripe payments, InPost shipping, an admin panel, a CAD module. The first thing I ever built with AI.

2023–2024 first project with AI PHP React live

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Context

I build solid-wood furniture and needed somewhere to show it — and I wanted to learn how to build a shop from the ground up. This was my first project built with AI: it came from my own need, not a client brief.

That doesn't make the problems invented. Solid-wood furniture pieces are one-offs, not catalog products — every table or workbench exists exactly once. The shop had to reflect that: reserve stock in the cart so two people can't buy the same piece, and handle shipping differently for furniture whose transport can't be priced up front.

What I built

A home page with five paths: sales, a gallery of past work, buying back old furniture, contact, and the sketchpad.
A project gallery with a description of each piece and workshop photos.
A cart rule that disables delivery options for products that need an individual shipping quote.
Cart reservations that expire and return the item to sale.
Online payments via Stripe and shipping via InPost ShipX.
An admin panel with IP-based login lockout.
A CAD sketchpad — Szkicownik (“Sketchpad”) — where a customer draws a piece with dimensions in millimeters and sends the design for a quote.

Crux

Technical decisions

Why does the shop take delivery choice away from the customer?

An oak workbench for 3,300 zł isn't going in a parcel locker. The shop knows that: for products needing an individual shipping quote, it disables the shipping options and leaves only in-person pickup, instead of letting someone order a courier and sorting it out afterward. The rule lives in the cart, not in the terms and conditions — the customer can't select something that isn't possible anyway.

Why do stock reservations expire?

Solid-wood furniture pieces are one-offs — there's no “second one in the warehouse.” Adding to cart reserves the piece so two people don't buy the same table, but the reservation expires and returns it to sale. Without expiry, an abandoned cart would freeze the item forever.

Why does the admin login lockout live in a file, not in the session?

Because a lockout in the session isn't a lockout. An attacker who doesn't send the cookie back gets a fresh session on every request — the attempt counter resets to zero and the limit disappears. A counter kept in a file, keyed by IP address, can't be beaten by dropping a cookie. Five failed attempts locks the address out for 15 minutes.

Where did the idea for Szkicownik come from?

The customer knows what they want but can't describe it — and I can't price a description. Szkicownik flips the order: the customer draws the piece with real dimensions in millimeters, sends the design, and I build it. Instead of an email back-and-forth of “something like that, but lower,” I get a technical drawing.

What it looks like

Home page: a header over dark planks reading „Lite drewno opowiada historię” (Solid wood tells a story), a navigation bar with a PL/EN switch, and cards below for sales, a project gallery, buying back wooden items, and contact and orders — The home page. Five paths, including furniture buyback and the sketchpad.

Project gallery: a workshop description, a thumbnail size slider, then projects „Półka Ścienna Drzewo” (Tree wall shelf) and „Stoliki Kawowe z Plastra Drewna” (Wood slice coffee tables), each with a description and photos from the workshop and the finished interior — The project gallery. Workshop shots next to finished pieces in a room.

Product page for „Krzesło PRL Hałas Motylek 296”: a large photo with a „click to enlarge” hint, a strip of five thumbnails, a cart icon showing „1”, and a product information section listing dimensions, weight, material and finish — A product page. Every piece is a one-off, so the description goes down to dimensions and finish.

Cart holding a single product: a thumbnail of the piece, its name and price, and an order summary with a checkout button — The cart holds a reservation. Stock leaves the listing while it is held, but the hold expires and returns it to sale.

CAD sketchpad: a toolbar with canvas, line width and unit settings, a vertical tool list (select, rectangle, circle, arc, line, text, dimension) and a canvas showing a table drawing annotated 190 and 303 mm — The sketchpad. The client draws the piece with dimensions and I build it — an order starts from a drawing, not a description.

Stack

PHP 8
React
Stripe
InPost ShipX
MySQL
Apache / OVH
PL/EN

The shop runs live on its own domain — see it in action.

Visit the site