About Windfall Woodworks

Meet Rob

Windfall Woodworks is born out of my passionate need to make beautiful, functional objects from wood. All my life, have been harvesting, shaping and building in wood. I made my first boat (a small toy sailboat) at age 8 after reading the children’s classic, Paddle to the Sea. Since that time, I have kept tools and material always close to hand, building and repairing boats, furniture, and homes at every opportunity.

My training and work reflect a holistic approach that makes Windfall Woodworks unique. It’s not enough to get the details right by themselves; they need to be right together.

As Windfall Woodworks I have done wide array of fine woodworking including custom cabinetry, stairs, doors, shelving and more. I collaborate with clients, designers, to help bring a vision to life while building to the highest standard possible.

Background

Following my love of working with wood, I chose to enter a boatbuilding apprenticeship at the Arques School for Traditional Boatbuilding in 1997. Wooden boat construction seemed to me the most complex, beautiful form of working with wood. After completing the apprenticeship, I moved to Vermont, where I was able to run a small boat shop for almost two decades.

In the early years, I salvaged nearly all of the material myself from windfall timber…hence the company name. As the shop’s projects grew, this approach became too labor-intensive and I developed close relationships with local sawyers. We work closely together to get the right wood product to meet the high standards I set for my own work.

In recent years, I shifted focus and am applying my skills to fine architectural millwork, although I still do restoration and new construction work with Darling’s Boatworks. The meticulous attention to detail required for building wooden boats proves to be an advantage when doing custom finishing work in homes and commercial spaces.