Bio

Here's a bench seat I made a few months ago.

My wife won't let me sell it, but I've made another one very similar already!

I'm a life-long appreciator of natural fibres and hand-crafted objects. I love the texture, look and feel of wood, and the integriy of it. I especially love using old recycled wood, with all its quirks. That's what makes it special.

I started hand-making large wooden picture frames, out of salvaged timber, for sale at the Paddington Markets back in Sydney, late last century. I also worked as a professional photographer for about 20 years, with a focus on structure, form and light. So I guess you could say I'm a visual person.

I went on to study a Cert IV in Horticulture & Landscape Gardening, and then worked in that area for many years along the Coogee coast-line for Randwick City Council. I could not afford to buy in Sydney though, so in 2002 my wife and I moved to Melbourne to get a mortgage and live in our first little inner city home. We renovated it carefully, but it wasn't long before we felt we needed more space, so in 2005 we made the big tree change to historic Ballarat. There we worked hard and renovated another two 19th century heritage properties (one residential and one commercial), and then took on the biggest challenge of all...

During 2013, as a labour of love, I built my own timber framed house in the country, resurrecting a derelict colonial relic, and I mean I really did build every bit of it myself, as the 'owner builder'.

In 2014 we won the 'best adaptive reuse of a heritage place' award from the City of Ballarat. That was a great honour, and I felt I had to keep on making things out of old materials and give them a new life. That's what I do.

Every item of furniture I make is unique and one-of-a-kind.