I did not start Zander Woodworks to make a buck. Granted, I like making money and probably wouldn't do what I'm doing for free, but it's not the reason I took the plunge into having a 6000 square foot shop and a pretty intimidating overhead. I really do love to make things and always have. The more beautiful and creative, the better.

For a couple decades, I had a one man operation. I designed, built, installed, swept, kept books... I did it all. I started right out of college with my own small shop: a 600sf garage at the home of Ruth Jacobs, a wonderfully colorful, chain smoking mother of two, who taught violin out of her house. Answering the Pennysaver ad (no internet, kids), the $300/month seemed like a lot at the time, but the space was perfect and I went for it. It's where I stayed for most of my 20's, building mostly what we called in the last century "art furniture", which I sold at the SOHO furniture gallery that represented me. Pieces that look like bugs mostly, which stemmed from my senior project at SUNY Purchase as a sculpture major; a series of furniture pieces based on bug forms. They were actually much cooler than they sound. The photo below is a six foot tall lamp from that era. It had transluscent wings and was painted a deep buggy green. To turn it on, you had to step on a smaller little bug (constructed from a dog toy and metal frame) that made a squeak, turning the lamp on via a sound activated switch. Mother protecting her child. Ahhh...art school.

Having a one man shop is a great training ground. You have to be the salesperson, marketing department, businessman, artist, cheap labor... you literally touch every part of the process. But it can also be limiting in the scope of what you can accomplish, so I frequently yearned for a bigger shop and skilled employees with which I could tackle juicier projects. Thus was the beginning of Zander Woodworks, LLC.

So, back to my mission, it's pretty simple:

To create beautiful and impeccably crafted custom woodworking. To handle my business dealings with honor, integrity and clear communication. To enjoy my life and love what I do. To leave my clients thrilled.

Thanks for reading.

David Zander