Let me introduce myself and my sometimes irascible companion Dougal. They say you should never go into business with family or friends and trust me I tried the former and failed horribly! But friends, well I think that’s a different story! Together we make furniture and provide woodwork training in my workshop overlooking the North Yorkshire coastline above Robin Hoods Bay.

I moved to the North East several years ago, transplanting my family and my workshop, on arrival something happened, the landscape, the people, the pace of life — it inspired me to make, I picked up my tools and I haven't looked back since.

If you simply want to buy a piece of furniture to fill a space, then we’re probably not your man or dog. Working with us isn't an impulse purchase. It's a considered decision, a journey that ends with a modern heirloom. They're investing in my competence as a maker and our profession as a whole.

There is a cost to that, and I genuinely accept it's more than most people can afford. But the alternative — cheap, generic, characterless furniture produced in a factory far far away. That has its own cost too.

In the past furniture makers were one of the original visual arts alongside painting and sculpture, we may have lost that status but that doesn't mean we can’t embrace a form the modern world has largely forgotten. I'm not trying to change the world. I'm just trying to make beautiful things, one piece at a time, in a workshop by the sea.