The Designer Who Became a Builder

For almost twenty years, I designed products that lived on screens.

I spent my career thinking about how people move through spaces—even if those spaces were digital. Every button, every interaction, every detail had a purpose. Good design wasn’t about making something look nice. It was about making life a little easier for the person using it.

Then life changed.

After years in product design, I found myself building with my hands again. Carpentry had always been part of who I was. I come from generations of builders. My grandfather was a high school shop teacher who built cedar canoes with his students, took them on week-long river trips, and later repaired airplanes. Growing up, if something needed to be built or fixed, we figured it out ourselves.

I was fourteen when I turned my parents’ deck into a BMX ramp. When that finally broke, I designed and built an adjustable fun box in our yard—long before YouTube could teach you how. I didn’t realize it then, but I was already thinking like a designer: identify a problem, imagine a solution, and build it.

That mindset never left.

Today I run Seacoast Builds, where I build custom cabinetry, home renovations, and handcrafted storage solutions. The tools are different, but the process is the same. I still start by asking questions. I still sketch ideas. I still obsess over details that most people will never notice. And I still believe that the best design feels obvious once it’s finished.

One of my favorite examples is a hockey locker I built for my daughter and me.

We were tired of wet gear piled on the floor. We wanted something that looked like it belonged in our home, kept equipment organized, and made getting ready for the rink easier. So I designed one.

Then friends wanted one.

Then strangers started buying them.

That’s when I realized I wasn’t just building furniture—I was solving problems.

Every project starts that way. A cluttered garage. A kitchen that doesn’t work for a family. A mudroom that’s always overflowing. I enjoy finding the simple solution that makes everyday life feel more organized, more functional, and just a little more enjoyable.

Good craftsmanship matters. Precision matters. But what matters most is building something that people genuinely love using years later.

I’m still a designer.

I just traded pixels for plywood.