My journey into furniture making began long before I started my Level 2 Carpentry & Joinery course. From 1999 to 2006, I worked professionally as a furniture maker, gaining hands-on experience in the trade and developing the practical skills that have stayed with me ever since.
After leaving the furniture trade, woodworking remained an important part of my life. Over the years I've continued making furniture, kitchen units, doors, workbenches, workshop equipment and all manner of other projects. A lot of my knowledge has come from practical experience, experimentation and figuring things out for myself.
I've always enjoyed more than simply making something. I like understanding how something should be made, finding better ways of doing it, and designing jigs and fixtures when a job calls for them. My workshop has become a place where I can combine those practical skills with my interest in design, problem solving and making things accurately.
Although I've been away from the professional furniture trade for many years, the skills and knowledge never really disappeared. They simply evolved through the projects I continued to undertake at home.
In September 2026, I started a Level 2 Diploma in Carpentry & Joinery, returning to formal education after more than 30 years.
This section documents my progress through the course — from learning traditional joints and bench skills to developing my own jigs and applying the techniques in my home workshop.
For me, college isn't the beginning of my journey with woodworking. It's the next chapter.
The mitred bridle joint was another step up in complexity. I started the joint during the college session but ran out of time before I could complete it, so I finished it at home.I was very happy with the way the finished joint turned out. It was a challenging joint to mark out and cut accurately, particularly because of the mitred shoulders, but the finished result showed that the techniques we'd been practising were starting to come together.
The half-lapped dovetail joint was the next joint we worked on at college. This introduced another new technique and required more careful marking out and cutting than the housing joints we had previously made.The joint combines a half lap with a dovetail, requiring the angled dovetail section to be accurately marked and cut so that the two pieces fit together correctly. As with the previous joints, accurate marking out was essential, but this exercise gave us another opportunity to develop our hand skills and attention to detail.
The stepped housing joint was the next variation we worked on, building on the techniques we had already practised with the standard and stopped housing joints.This joint introduced another level of accuracy, as the housing is formed in two different levels, creating a step within the joint. This meant careful marking out was particularly important to ensure that both housings were positioned correctly and that the finished joint fitted together accurately.
We then moved on to the stopped housing joint, which builds on the skills we had developed with the previous housing joint.
During the first term of the course, we are not yet officially registered with City & Guilds. This period is being used to develop and practise our fundamental hand-working skills before we begin the formal qualification.The joints documented during this period are therefore part of this preliminary skills-building stage. They give us the opportunity to practise accurate marking out, sawing, chiselling and fitting by hand, while developing the basic techniques we'll need as the course progresses.
In September 2026, I took a step that I hadn't expected to take after more than 30 years away from formal education: I enrolled on a Level 2 Diploma in Carpentry & Joinery.
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