A small workshop. A long obsession.

My name is Hayden, and The Woodworkers Shed is a one-person workshop tucked away in Whangamata, Aotearoa. I've been a builder by trade for thirty-two years — and somewhere along the way the offcuts, the old beams pulled from villas, and the quiet hours at the bench took on a life of their own.

Whangamata wasn't an accident. I came here for the lifestyle — the ocean, the bush, the slower pace — and stayed because the place keeps handing me inspiration. There's a particular kind of light in this part of the country that makes you want to take your time over things.

I work almost entirely with native and locally-recycled native timbers — Rimu, and others on request. Every piece carries a history: a beam from a hundred-year-old homestead, a slab someone was about to burn, a length of Rimu nobody else wanted. My job is to listen to the grain, choose the best face, and bring it back to life as something you'll keep in your kitchen for the next fifty years.

The workshop is small but properly kitted out — a dimension saw, a good thicknesser, a pair of planers I trust, and the kind of hand tools that get sharper with age. Nothing leaves the bench until it would feel at home in my own kitchen. Everything is finished in food-safe hard-wax oils, signed, and sent off with a care card.

"The best pieces don't shout. They earn their place in the kitchen, on the table, and eventually, in the family."

This is genuinely a passion — bringing the beauty of recycled native timber back to life is what gets me into the workshop early and keeps me there late. If you've found something here you like, I'd love to make it for you. If you have an idea that isn't on the site, even better — the most interesting pieces almost always start as a conversation.

I also take on corporate and gift orders — engraved boards for real estate settlements, Christmas hampers, wedding gifts and the like. Minimum ten pieces, with two weeks' lead time.

— Hayden