Former barrister Femi Adebayo on swapping courtrooms for a workshop in the Peak District, and the chair that took him nine months.
Interview by Lucy Hart · 8 min readYou left a law career to make furniture. Why?
I was happiest on weekends with a chisel in my hand. One Monday I just didn't go back. My mum still calls it my “gap decade”.
What's the hardest thing about working with wood?
Patience. Oak doesn't care about your deadline. If you rush the drying, the table cracks in someone's kitchen two winters later.
“Make ten bad stools before you make one good chair.”
What would you tell someone starting out?
Make ten bad stools before you make one good chair. And keep the bad ones, they remind you how far you've come.