Reclaimed wood workshop
Made by Jopie
Wall units, shelves, trays and tea boxes, built from wood that already lived one life. Banded in steel, finished by hand. No piece is ever made twice.
The work
One of one, every time
Finished pieces tend to leave the workshop before anyone thinks to photograph them. So here they are the way they start: as drawings on the bench.
Wall unit
A shelf for the good glasses and the candles above it. Hand-cut brackets, a steel band around the end, rivets where they're needed and a few where they're not.
Apothecary cabinet
Floor to shoulder height, with an arched crown. Open shelves for jars and bottles, and six small drawers that close with a knock.
Tea box
A lidded chest with brass tacks and a turn latch. The plaque on top is engraved and framed, so nobody has to guess what's inside.
The making
From pallet to plaque
Found
Pallets, crates, boards left over from someone else's plans. The wood arrives full of nail holes and weather.
Stripped
Nails out, boards planed smooth enough to touch. Never enough to erase the years.
Joined
The steel banding that held the pallets together goes back on, riveted. It holds, and it decorates.
Finished
Dark stain, wax, brass tacks. And a plaque, when a piece earns a name.
Every plank has a past.
About
The family's maker
Give Jopie a stack of pallets and a quiet afternoon and something appears: a shelf, a cabinet, a box with a little engraved sign on it. The wood he starts with is nothing anyone wanted. What comes off his bench hangs in living rooms and holds the good glasses, the tea, the bottles saved for visitors.
He doesn't repeat himself. If you've seen one of his pieces in somebody's house, that is the only place you will ever see it.
Contact
Ask about a piece
Most of what Jopie builds is for family and friends, but a good idea is hard for him to refuse. If a wall in your house needs something with a history, write.
Write to Jopie