I got my woodworking career started in 2015 as purely happenstance. While living in Chicago, our home backed up to an alley, as many homes in Chicago do. The gate from the house to the alley was low, flimsy and ineffective. My options were to pay someone to rebuild it taller and more secure or do it myself. I couldn’t bring myself to have someone else do it after thinking: ‘this won’t be too hard’. So, with an overblown sense of confidence, a big-box pull saw, some nails and hinges, a tape measure and a pile of lumber, I set out to rebuild. To my surprise,I could actually do it! What was more, I felt a sense of accomplishment, a sense of creating – taking a pile of wooden sticks and putting them together in a meaningful and useful way, a sense of being at ease with what I was doing. 

I didn’t question what I was doing or how I did it, I simply did what felt right. In the end, we had a high, sturdy and well-functioning gate – and I was hooked. I had the pile of old gate materials that I couldn’t bring to dispose of – another earmark of a true craftsperson – that no good piece of material could be wasted – so I set out to make a couple of planter boxes out of that old material. This time, I picked up a box of screws along with a drill and driver set and set off on my next build. The planter-boxes were not luxurious. They were crude with exposed screws and unequal cuts throughout – needless to say, I had not mastered the art of accurate and equal cuts with a barely useful pull-saw. Nonetheless, I ended up with two very sturdy planter boxes that we put on our roof deck and filled with perennials. The planter boxes held their own, unfinished, on our roof, exposed to the Chicago elements, for the next 6 years.

The seed was planted. When I was creating, I lost all sense of time. My breath was full and calm – despite using tools that I was unqualified and untrained to use and could easily cut off a finger while doing it. The risk of it seemed to calm me further – knowing that, without full concentration and focus, injury was a possible outcome. It became my solace, my creative space – no talking, no judgement. Just my full self – body and mind – ideating what I wanted to build and my body following, feeling its way to create the thing I desired. 

Over the next 6 years I made countless projects – cabinets, shop furniture, desks and tables,  picture frames, etc. I received a miter saw as a gift from my brother which fueled the fire – a tool that can achieve a better outcome faster than I ever could using a pull-saw (at least at the time). I continued to buy tools and spent countless hours reading about new-to-me techniques and would try them out. I would consume YouTube material – anything that taught me how to do something new or improve the quality of the outcome. I learned how to joint material together to create structurally sound furniture. 

Upon moving to the Bay Area in 2021, I had a strong foundation of skills and experience. I learned new and more complex joinery. I expanded my knowledge and use of hand tools. And I continued to create and my skills were now able to accomplish what I had envisioned for building something. I could create mitered boxes with splines, mortise and tenons, rebates and grooves, half-laps, floating tenons, dowels and castle joints. The use of screws was becoming optional – just well-cut, equal and accurately cut pieces of wood joined together with glue and natural friction was all I needed to make something beautiful and functional. 

I made chess boards, jewelry boxes, artist easels, wooden games, cutting boards, tables and shelves. I knew that this was not just a hobby anymore, this was something I deeply desired to do on a permanent basis. 

So I set a course – a plan that, while working a corporate job, I could still execute and that would inch me closer to preparing to launch a business building custom furniture. I set up an Etsy shop and sold pieces there. I continued to hone my skills. I setup a website. I made gifts for friends and family. Fast-forward to 2025, after 20 years of corporate work, the time was right to leave that world and really build something. I incorporated KMS Fine Woodworking in late 2025 and began taking custom furniture commissions. 

I would like to say that I specialize in tables and desks but part of my passion is also not doing the same thing twice. The idea of giving a piece of wood that was once a tree a second life reflects my ethos as a carpenter. I gained an appreciation for the beauty of what nature had given to us – it was my job to celebrate that by creating beautiful and highly functional bespoke furniture that would last people generations – a place where people could gather, spill drinks on, get scratched up by the pets, dents from years of use – people, families, infusing their own story into and around that table, that desk. A place where people can think, be themselves and do nothing else but the thing they are meant to do in that space.

There is a saying that wood is the most scarce material in the universe and I don’t know if that is true but I like the idea – that this wood should be used to celebrate, to enhance our lives, however that needs to happen. The adage: ‘form follows function’, to me, isn’t quite accurate. It is form instructs function – each piece of lumber is best used for a certain application and my job is to be a steward of the instructions that nature has given us.

I would love to build a 1-of-1 piece of furniture for you, your family or loved ones. Please contact me at kevin@kmsfww.com or 847.513.2890. 

Kevin works out of his home in San Carlos, California – a beautiful, small town on the mid-peninsula of the San Francisco Bay Area – nestled into the rolling foothills of the Santa Cruz mountains.