How I Started
Quiet walks on San Francisco streets…
“Clients don’t come to me for surfaces. They come for soul. For the story.”
The ‘08 Recession
In 2008, I was living in San Francisco — broke, laid off, and wandering neighborhoods with my eyes on the curb.
That’s where I found the nightstand.
It had been left out on the street, scratched up, forgotten. I took it home, painted it white, and masked off a geometric pattern in gray that wrapped around the whole piece. I didn’t have good tools. I didn’t know the right finishes. But I worked hard on it — not because I thought it would sell, but because I wanted to make something beautiful out of something abandoned.
When I listed it on Craigslist, a woman came to see it.
She was tall, sharp. Pixie-cut black hair, red leather jacket, confidence that filled the room. She circled the piece like a curator, then ran her hand across the top. I felt a bead of sweat roll down my back. I knew the finish wasn’t smooth. I had priced it low for that reason, but still — I braced myself.
She looked up and said,
“The finish isn’t really good enough for what I’m looking for…”
My heart dropped.
Then she added,
“Did you design this yourself?”
Her tone had changed. It wasn’t critical — it was curious. Impressed, even.
She didn’t buy it. But before she left, she told me to keep going.
That moment stuck with me — not because I made a sale (I didn’t), but because it was the first time someone saw what I had buried underneath the fear and the grit:
I could see something other people couldn’t.
I just had to learn how to make it real.
I See Furniture Before it Exists
I see furniture before it exists - not in sketches or mood boards. I see the entire thing: light, shadow, scale, texture. It’s like a film playing in my head — complete scenes, from build to finish. Recently it’s been referred to as “hyperphantasia” and it’s why, by the time I sit down with Sketchup to create my renderings, I’ve already done 95% of the design work in my mind.
My job now is getting the real world to line up with that vision.
It’s like running wiring through an entire house, one outlet at a time — and then flipping the breaker and watching everything light up. It’s like shooting an arrow through a dozen moving rings and hearing the thunk as it hits the bullseye.
That moment when a piece is finally finished — and the client sees it for the first time — that’s what I live for.
Their jaw always drops. They never fully believed what I was describing.
But now it’s right there in front of them. Better than the picture in their head.
I don’t just build furniture. I tell stories in wood.
Every piece starts with reclaimed lumber — wood that lived a full life long before it ever entered my shop. Maybe it held up a barn for over a century. Maybe it carried the weight of cattle, storms, families, and time. When I shape that wood into a dining table or a whiskey cabinet, I’m not erasing its past. I’m building on it.
Clients don’t come to me for surfaces. They come for soul. For the story. They want to be able to tell their guests:
“This table took 150 years to make. First by the hands who built the barn. Then by the one who built this.”
That kind of meaning? You won’t find it at Restoration Hardware.
If you want to see the process — the failures, the surprises, the stories behind the wood — come hang out with me on YouTube.
I film each build as it unfolds: the design decisions, the wrong turns, the redemptions, and the final reveal. It’s not a tutorial channel. It’s more like a behind-the-scenes tour of the workshop, where you can see how meaning gets built into each piece.
I’m not here to sell you something.
I’m just here to show you what it looks like when a story gets a second life.
(I also have ADHD, so if I forget to link to my YouTube Channel here like I planned, please let me know at info@speakeasywoodoworking.com)