A File Per Piece
I was digging through a cardboard box in the corner of my studio last Tuesday—one of those graveyard bins for things that didn’t quite make the cut—and I found a…
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A Jig Used Four Times
I was staring at a pile of expensive walnut offcuts last Tuesday, wondering if I’d just spent forty dollars on firewood. I had a single, oddly shaped component that refused…
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Twenty Years in One Room
I was clearing out a drawer of old router bits last Tuesday when I realized that my workspace doesn’t look anything like the pristine, minimalist studios you see on Instagram.…
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A Claim Three Years Later
I was staring at a walnut sideboard last Tuesday—a piece I’d spent six months perfecting—and realized that even the best joinery can’t outrun a poorly drafted service agreement. Most people…
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Practising a Joint on Offcuts
I was standing in my workshop last Tuesday, staring at a pile of walnut offcuts that looked more like firewood than furniture, thinking about the sheer amount of money people…
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Telling a Client How to Look After It
I was staring at a stack of rejected walnut veneer samples last Tuesday—each one marked with a Sharpie note about a failed grain match—when I realized how much we overcomplicate…
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Designing Inside Someone Else’s Constraints
I spent most of my twenties watching people treat a client brief like a sacred text, something to be followed with a sort of fearful, religious precision. They think that…
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The Mistake You Cannot Hide
I can still smell the burnt linseed oil and the metallic tang of a failed weld from that Tuesday in 1998. I was twenty-four, working on a prototype for a…
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Finishing in a Dusty Workshop
I remember standing over a walnut sideboard last spring, the kind of piece that takes three weeks of careful joinery just to feel worthy of a topcoat. I had just…
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A Piece Damaged After Delivery
I remember the smell of scorched walnut—that sharp, acrid scent that tells you a router bit has stayed in one place a second too long. I was twenty-four, working on…
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