Grant has many strings to his bow, traversing management, architecture and interior design before settling on a career in fine woodworking.

A native of the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, after finishing high school he studied architecture at RMIT.

Upon graduating, Grant lived and travelled abroad for a number of years before returning to Australia to take up a number of management roles – at the same time feeding his creative hunger through studies in interior design.

Eventually it dawned on him that he wanted to be more hands-on with his creative endeavours and he began night classes at Handsome & Co, a fine woodworking school in Richmond.

He loved these classes so much that he decided to pursue this as a full-time occupation, and having secured work with us at TIDE began a furniture making apprenticeship at Holmesglen Tafe.

Throughout his apprenticeship Grant won every award that could be won!

An aspect of furniture-making Grant really enjoys is the ability to work from initial design concept, all the way through to hand-making the final piece.

Being involved in the design of new pieces and helping to find solutions to the many design problems that arise in this process is rewarding, as is the range of timbers he gets to work with – from Australian to overseas species such as American and Tasmanian Oak, Tasmanian Blackwood and American Maple.

He’s particularly drawn to American Walnut, an excellent timber to work with for its rich, warm tone, interesting grain patterns and beautiful sweet scent.