Fifteen years in workshops, first as an apprentice, now running my own bench near Stroud.
I trained as a cabinet maker before spending several years working alongside an upholsterer in Cirencester, which is where I picked up the traditional stuffed-over techniques I still use today. In 2009 I set up on my own, working out of a converted barn workshop where I now split my time roughly evenly between structural repair, French polishing and upholstery.
Most of what comes through the door is family furniture — chairs, tables and cabinets that mean more to their owners than their market value would suggest. I like that kind of work. A well-executed repair should be sympathetic to the piece, not a showcase of the repair itself.
I keep the business small deliberately. Everything that leaves the workshop has been through my own hands, start to finish.
Wherever possible I use traditional materials — horsehair and coir stuffing, natural cane and rush, hide glue and shellac — because they behave the way older furniture expects them to, and because they can usually be repaired again in another fifty years, which modern foam and synthetic glues generally can't.