Born in Buffalo, NY my family eventually moved outside of the city to a small town which had an antique shop. I remember at the young age of 12 going in one day and being amazed by the unique one of a kind items including some of the antique furniture in various styles made from varying species. At the age of 15 & now living in Eastern North Carolina I started working my 1st job cleaning floors. I remember being excited to work not only to make some $$ but to learn a skill. I was never one to sit around twiddling my thumbs. I like to blame this on my father who set a great example of how to provide for your family sometimes working 2 & 3 jobs at times to make sure we had a roof over us and food on the table.
Anyway after about 9 years or working in about 6 different fields of work that really didn’t suit me. I started working for my father-in-law’s auction company which I enjoyed since I got to learn so much more about antiques and furniture. I learned how to repair and refinish pieces that came in for the auction. I learned the various styles from throughout the last 200 years along with the species & techniques used to make them. I especially fell in love with Mid Century Modern designs by Knoll, Eames, Jacobsen, Nelson especially the naturalistic style of the famed George Nakashima.
Eventually with my ever growing family of 7 I needed to somehow make some supplemental income. So in 2015 I started buying well used and worn out furniture as well as some cool vintage & antique industrial pieces that I could repair, refinish, recycle or up-cycle into one of a kind pieces I would sell at various local consignment shops. Working on those pieces one day out of the week. One day someone who saw my work contacted me and asked me to make a 10’ long custom entryway table from scratch using new materials. Something I had never done before and had zero experience doing. But if you know me you know I’m always up for a challenge. And from the completion of that table I was hooked with making things with my hands from local sustainably sourced woods and recycled steel.
What started out as a 1 day a week way to make some extra money to help support my family 3 years later it became a full time job where I can work from home and be close to my family and each one of them has at one time or another come out to the garage and helped me work on projects among other things making it a full family affair. I get to work with my hands using natural materials I have always had a special place for in my heart. I always tell people I don’t make the gorgeous materials I use. I can only enhance and show off the beauty our Creator has given us. And I take something that could have eventually rotted and returned to the earth and make it into something that will last a lifetime or longer.
