Knotty dave
I didn’t grow up dreaming of being a cabinetmaker.
I grew up around tools, scraps, and people who built things because that’s just what they did. My grandfather was a cabinetmaker — a tough old man from a different era, the kind who smoked too much, drank too much, and didn’t hand out praise or guidance. True grit, but not the warm kind. My dad didn’t learn the trade from him. He tried but that wasn’t happening. So he went to my grandfather in grade seven, grade seven! And said he wanted to drop out of school. Grandpa didn’t give him a speech. He just said, “Get a job first.” So my dad did. The next day he was sweeping floors at Eaton’s. But Dad wasn’t built to push a broom. He watched the old guys in the watch repair department — real craftsmen doing real work, and he wanted in. That department was already on the slow decline toward the disposable modern world, but nobody knew it yet. Dad charmed his way into that room. He became the youngest watchmaker Eaton’s Winnipeg ever trained and the last one they ever would. He built a career out of it. Raised a family. Bought a cottage. Lived the dream on his own terms. Eventually he bought a jewellery store, ran it for years, and retired from it. My brother runs it now. And through that store, through watching my dad build something of his own I learned what self‑employment looked like. I learned business. I learned independence. I learned that you don’t wait for permission to build a life. So after high school, I worked in that store. I saw the world of small business from the inside. I saw what it meant to stand on your own two feet. And that’s the line I come from. Not perfect. Not polished. Not romantic. Real. A grandfather who survived his own demons. A father who carved out a life with grit and charm. And me — a cabinetmaker who took the long road but ended up exactly where he was meant to be. Two behind me. One ahead of me. All of us tied to the same line.
In 2012, I opened Knotty Dave’s Fine Woodworking. I built kitchens, bathrooms, offices, furniture, mantles, jewellery stores, anything that needed to exist, I built it. I learned heritage restoration by living inside a heritage home. I learned storytelling by paying attention to the work. I learned that craft isn’t just skill, it’s identity. And then there’s the name. I didn’t name myself Knotty Dave. Let’s get that out of the way. Back then, I was president of Leo and Brett’s football club, not a coach, not a helper, the actual president. I was juggling practices, parents, schedules, and the usual chaos that comes with kids’ sports. Meanwhile, woodworking was chewing at me from the inside. I was a journeyman. I had the skill. I knew the world was wide open. I just needed a name. Naming a business is brutal. Everything sounds either too serious, too cheesy, or like a guy selling cutting boards out of a van. I had a list of contenders most of which I’ve blocked from memory except one: Wood Wizard. Which… yeah. No. One day, I’m talking to one of the football moms just a normal sideline conversation and out of nowhere she calls me “Knotty Dave.” I laughed. She didn’t. She said, “There. That’s your name.” And then it happened. The mom chat lit up. Suddenly I wasn’t David the president. I wasn’t David the cabinetmaker. I wasn’t David the guy trying to figure out his next move. I was “Knotty Dave”. They loved it. They spread it. They branded me before I even had a logo. And that’s how the name was born — not from a boardroom, not from a marketing plan, not from a brainstorm. From a football mom who saw something in me I hadn’t named yet, and a group of parents who ran with it like it was gospel. Today, Knotty Dave’s is more than a shop. It’s a brand built on honesty, heritage, and the belief that every cut has a story. I’m restoring my own 100‑year‑old home, building a hearth room, raising a son who’s learning the craft one stubborn lesson at a time, and building a content studio that shows the real work — the good, the bad, the sawdust. I’m not here to pretend. I’m not here to polish the truth. I’m here to build things that last, tell stories that matter, and leave a legacy my son can stand on. This is who I am. This is the work.
