I was standing over a slab of walnut last Tuesday, pencil lead snapped, feeling that familiar, hollow knot of dread in my stomach. I had already cut the tenons for…

I remember standing in my first studio, surrounded by sawdust and the smell of scorched lacquer, staring at a pile of expensive walnut that I’d completely botched because I’d rushed…

I can still smell the bitter, metallic tang of that failed walnut sideboard from 2004. I had been so hungry to see the finished joinery that I ignored the humidity…

I can still smell the damp, metallic tang of the sawdust from that first studio in the nineties, a scent that always signaled the start of a long, grueling afternoon.…

I have a shelf in the back of my studio filled with what I call my “ghosts”—half-finished joinery samples and slabs of walnut that were ruined because I trusted a…

I’ve spent enough time in lumber yards to know that the industry loves to sell you on the idea of “perfection.” They’ll point to a slab of flawless, clear-grain maple…

I have a shelf in the back of my studio filled with half-finished joinery and bent plywood that never quite made the cut. Most people look at a finished chair…

I was standing in a client’s living room last Tuesday, watching a junior designer pull out a laser measure and a digital tablet as if they were performing surgery. It’s…

I remember sitting in a drafty studio in 2004, staring at a client who wanted a chair that “felt like a cloud” but cost less than a decent slab of…

I have a shelf in the corner of my studio dedicated to the “almosts”—the joinery that was too ambitious, the wood species that turned out to be a mistake, and…