Where It All Started

Growing up in Tremblant, Quebec, woodworking was simply part of everyday life. I was raised in a square-log home that my parents built the year I was born. My dad was a carpenter, and my mom ran a successful wood craft business, so learning to work with wood came pretty naturally.

I still remember getting my own woodworking toolbox when I was young—real tools, just smaller versions of the ones in Dad’s workshop. When your parents build their own home, there is always something left to finish, fix, or build, so we spent plenty of time learning by doing.

Our workshop was just off the living room, and the bandsaw was probably my favourite tool. It was used for everything from cutting out wooden decorations to, as teenagers, cutting a frozen pizza in half when nothing else seemed quite as efficient!

TLove Workshop

Finding My Way Back to the Workshop

Many years later, for my 39th birthday, I received a bandsaw of my own. I started cutting out wooden decorations again, and it didn’t take long to realize that the love of woodworking had never really gone away.

There’s something about being in a workshop, the smell of sawdust, figuring out how to make an idea work, and starting with an ordinary piece of wood and creating something with it. That birthday bandsaw brought me back to something I had grown up with and eventually became part of the beginning of TL Workshop.

The story behind the Wood. In 2008, we began building our timber-frame home just west of Edmonton, Alberta. As our own general contractors, we were involved in every step of the process. Seeing how much beautiful scrap wood was left over from the build, we decided to start a pile rather than let it go to waste.

That pile quickly grew into a mountain, pine 2x4s, Douglas fir timbers and mouldings, cedar siding, and even old fencing we removed from the property. Over the years, the wood weathered naturally, developing a beautiful mix of greys, warm tones, and textures.

Today, pieces from that original pile continue to find new life in my TL Workshop, becoming everything from small decorative pieces to one-of-a-kind projects. What started as simply not wanting good wood to go to waste has become a big part of how I like to create: reuse what I have, preserve its character, and turn it into something new.

Christmas Craft Sales

A Little Family Tradition

Long before TL Workshop, my mom was making and selling her own wood crafts at Christmas craft sales in the 1990s. I grew up surrounded by her creations and watching her turn simple pieces of wood into things people wanted to bring into their homes.

Years later, I found myself doing much the same thing, making my own wooden pieces and setting up a table at local Christmas craft sales. Seeing my work displayed together for that first sale felt a little like things had come full circle.

My Turn at the Craft Sales

Craft sales eventually became a chapter I decided to leave behind. Between the hours spent making inventory, setting up, and attending the shows, they weren't the right fit for where I wanted to take TL Workshop.

But I'm glad I did them. There was something pretty special about following in my mom's footsteps decades later, even for a little while. And in many ways, those early craft-sale projects helped lead to what I enjoy most today: creating one-of-a-kind pieces, repurposing old materials, and taking on projects that have a story behind them.