Our furniture workshop started in 2006 and was one of the first social enterprises at the Grassmarket Community Project. The furniture-making workshop is open four days per week and has eight to ten individuals volunteering as part of the team every day. This team comes from our own membership or through referral agencies, and is made up of vulnerable people who are furthest from mainstream employment opportunities.
The team transforms unwanted church pews and other responsibly sourced wood into beautiful furniture and home furnishings. Our members work with woodwork experts to create individual, bespoke pieces of furniture on a commission basis, developing skills and increasing confidence. Individual items and larger suites of furniture can be crafted.
Each item of furniture is designed and built to the customer’s exact specification and we can offer a variety of different types of wood, many of which are no longer commercially available.
Furniture we have produced in the past includes dining tables, smaller tables, cabinets, garden benches, lecterns, memorial plaques, notice boards, nursery furniture and many other items. Please see the gallery page for examples of our work.
If you would like to commission a piece of furniture or find out more please contact our woodwork manager Jon Slight: jon@grassmarket.org or 07889 169 155.
Each furniture sale helps us continue our good work. We believe every individual can make a worthwhile contribution to our community and wider society.
The woodwork team learn valuable woodworking skills and gain practical work experience. Through these placements vulnerable individuals increase their confidence and self-esteem, develop good work ethics, improve their social skills, reliability and resilience, and ultimately work towards further opportunities including formal qualifications and employment.
On Fridays we run a taster session for others to try their hand at woodwork. Individuals are encouraged and supported to make a small item achievable in a day. From this experience many individuals, who feel they have never achieved anything meaningful, start to believe in themselves. Often this is all that is required to set people on a journey of self-discovery and social integration.
If you would like to attend a taster session, or find out more about them for someone else, please contact our woodwork manager Jon Slight jon@grassmarket.org or 07889 169 155.
“Thank you so much for all the work you do and all the amazing resources you make for us in Midlothian.”
“Just wanted to thank you for the lovely bench. It’s fantastic.”
“Just wanted to say….the counter is incredible. A nice emotional moment for me this morning, seeing it for the first time.”
