About Us

Small beginnings.

Norfolk Wood Shop started as a collaborative idea between Trevor McCarthy-a friend and woodworking enthusiast- and myself. We stewed over many ideas, over the course of a year, and came up with this place: this place that is a different kind of art store. This place whose main goal is to provide the tools, supplies, education, and connections to help makers step up their game. While Trevor has stepped away to pursue his personal goals, he truly was the catalyst for this endeavor. Without him, I wouldn’t have done this, and I certainly wouldn’t have done it now.

One of my main goals is to help customers avoid buying the wrong thing. When getting started in woodworking, it is so easy to think you need one tool or another, and sometimes its hard to know when to spring for the best of the best, or when the economy item will work just as well as the high end item. I still have some tools in my home shop that I have never used. In this vein, we are also going to keep our prices as fair as possible, doing our part to make woodworking as accessible as we can. Everything in our shop has been carefully curated for exactly these reasons.

I also wanted to create a place that makes it easy for local artists to sell their creations. I wanted to be able to connect those makers with people who may be looking for something completely custom and unique for them. Initially, our consigners’ items will only be available for purchase in person, but as we move forward, they will become available through our website and other avenues so that we are doing as much as we can to help our local makers prosper. If a local maker wants to focus on the MAKING part, we will handle the rest after they have handed off their masterpieces.

This year, 2023, we have some big updates coming. We will continue to expand our inventory with a few high quality names, including a few diamonds in the rough I never would have known about without all the research I’ve been doing to bring the best to Norfolk Wood Shop. We have plans to open our own tool line as well, focused on small set up jigs and other shop aids that make life easier. We are planning events, and expanding upon those to not only include our “Make It, Take It” series, but will also be rolling out a “Workout Your Workshop” series as well. Product demos, date night ideas, and classes are all coming, so keep up with us to find out more as we bring these fresh ideas to life.

I’ve never done retail before. There’s not much funding for this, but we’re all in-so failure isn’t an option. We’re not here to push anything on you. We’re here to listen to what you need, and hopefully provide a solution that gets you where you need to go. If we don’t know the answer, we’ll do our best to help you find one. If you like what we are doing, and like supporting your neighbors and local craftsmen and women, drop in and say hi. Tell everyone you know that we’re here. The only way we’ll stay around is if you want us here.

Thank you in advance, to all our neighbors and friends who support us.

~James Brooks, Owner