HandMadeWoodGifts.com

I made a blog post a while ago giving a little more personal info about us, but I neglected to update this page!  If you never saw that post, you are missing out!  So here is an update, plagiarizing my original blog post and adding a little extra info.  Hopefully this will give you some insight into our world and let you get to know us better and understand the passion that we have for fine woodworking and producing custom items.

The Basics:

We are a small family run business.  In this picture (on the left) is me, Derek.  My wife is a little camera shy, so in her place is my second love…. a piece of exotic Cocobolo.  This is the wood that I first fell in love with when I started woodworking.  This picture does not show the full detail of the streaks of red, yellow, and orange… shocking that something like this is naturally produced!  Cocobolo is my favorite exotic wood, and my favorite domestic wood is Maple Burl… maybe I’ll have a picture of that next time.  So the moral of the story is that I want all of you to see who is behind HandmadeWoodGifts.  I like to refer to myself as the “creative mind” and my wife as the “voice of reason”.

Our Shop and Location:

We are located in a northern suburb of Detroit.  My shop right now exists in a two and a half car garage which functions most of its life as a home for 2 cars and a bunch of tool and wood storage.  However, every now and then the cars are removed, the tools come out, and the creation begins!  While I would love to show you all my tools and the area in which I work (after cleaning day of course), I keep that a little close to the vest because a few years ago I had several items go missing in the middle of the night.  So I would love to show off how I manage to shoehorn all of it in there, but a few bad apples spoil it for the rest of us.  

Our Dreams and Future:

This is about as personal as we can get without having dinner together, sharing our hopes and dreams with all of you.  This could go in many directions and get very unrealistic quickly, but I do try to keep my head only half in the clouds.  While woodworking on my own personal island in the Gulf of Mexico sounds great, that probably isn’t in the cards for us, so here is a more realistic tiered approach of our goals:

Level 1: Work out of my garage and provide high quality wood products, keeping with the type of work displayed on this website and do the occasionally high-end custom furniture piece.

Level 2: Have a dedicated work space that is large enough to use any 1 tool at a time without needing to move or unplug them.  Have several reoccurring clients and enough flow of inventory to participate in local art shows (once we’re accepted of course!). 

Level 3: Creating my core products while also producing high-end custom furniture (maybe kitchens too) for a large list of reoccurring clients to the point that it becomes my full time job that can be done from a shop that is next to (or attached to) my house.  Perhaps I’ll need to then hire my son to help out and be able to pass my passion and the skills I have learned down to him.   Maybe even a sawmill out back, if I end up away from the suburbs one day.  If the house is big enough maybe I can have my own art gallery room and have little wine and cheese showings.. invite only :)

I’m currently hovering around the Level 1 goal, and maybe that is all I will be able to do for the next 10-20 years.  Or maybe in the next 5 years I’ll be running at a Level 3, working 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, in the shop with all sorts of spinning sharp things ready to remove a finger in the blink of an eye.  As opposed to the 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, office job with a 30 mile, hour long one way commute.   We all have different dreams.

Thanks to all that have helped us get to the first level, with your continued help and support we will continue to grow and provide you with unique custom items.  With A LOT of your support maybe you can make our Level 3 dreams come true.  I know that many people will tell you that when your hobby becomes a full time job you will then hate it.  I refuse to believe that part of having a job is that you need to hate it as many people do.  But rather I take the Confucius thought of “Find a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life.”

So please keep us in mind for all your custom handmade wood needs and know that each customer is important and directly impacts our small operation.

Where have we seen you before?

We have shipped items many places outside of the United States, including Australia, Canada, China, and Japan.  You may have seen our products or our website featured in any one of the following locations:

  Now on Facebook!

Online Shops: