Brought up on woodworking, trained in design engineering, working in software development. This is my story of how I started this woodworking venture.

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I’ve been woodworking for a long time - since I was old enough to hammer a nail into wood. It began with my Grandad, who was a carpenter (and foreman) by trade, and my Dad who is an engineer and DIY expert. In every room in our house, there is something made by Grandad or Dad, and growing up around these and watching them being made inspired me.

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I started out making lots of things for fun like small boxes, toy cars and cutlery trays from recycled wood and leftover bamboo floorboards. This habit of making little things persisted until the end of University, when I discovered the rich online woodworking community and binge-watched hours of youtube videos. These videos gave me many ideas. My first high-quality, “professional-style” project was making dice boxes for my Dungeons & Dragons group - my friends were stunned by the quality (in a good way of course). They said the boxes were so good I could sell them for good money, I thought this was a neat idea but then I got a job that had me move out of my parents’ house (and away from my Dad and Grandads tools).

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During the pandemic I moved back home which was when I received my first commission: a Neal-height double-door outdoor garden gate. It was a fun project but transporting the gates I’d made at home to the clients house was a real challenge in a small car. It was a stressful project in some ways because if I messed up the client wouldn’t have a garden gate and I had never worked on anything that big before. It worked out well though and the client sent me a very kind letter thanking me for my work. Not an email, a letter. I know!

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The project that inspired me to start this commissioning setup was a picture frame for my friend. I worked very hard on it and tried some new joinery techniques. I was personally surprised with the results. Before, everything I’d done had been “this is really good, but it’s lacking something that really makes it high-quality”, but this project was “this is really good, no buts”.

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It really motivated me to continue woodworking, but the only problem was that I can’t make things for my self as I’ve got nowhere to put them - so I decided to try sell things I make. I had a slow stream of commissions come in for frames and the like and slowly started developing my commissioning process to allow it to grow controllably and flexibly.

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My favourite moment in a project is that sudden point where everything goes from being “oh man, this is kinda messy and mediocre looking” to “oh damn this look amazing, did I really make this, wow”. These moments are a culmination of hours of hard work early on, combined with the little things toward the end of a project like chamfering the edges on a board or planning a joint smooth.