Hey, I’m Matt!

Building runs in the family

I didn't choose this trade. I inherited it. My grandfather was a cabinet maker, gifted with his hands in a way people still talk about. My dad was a carpenter too, and he's still got a cottage on the lake, a place where you learn that good things get built right, and you don't rush them. I grew up in that world. I had a shovel in my hand by six years old. While other kids were playing, I was building. Woodworking wasn't a chore. It was the thing I looked forward to.

There was a stretch where I thought I'd end up somewhere different. I was athletic, always interested in biology, and I gave real thought to massage therapy or sports therapy. Still working with my hands, still helping people, just a different trade. But life doesn't always wait for your plans. The trade I was raised in was there when I needed it most.

Learning the craft, the hard way

Even before all that, I'd already spent my high school years working restoration jobs, homes wrecked by fire, wind, water. After high school I went off to college. Somewhere in there is when I lost my mom, and restoration work is what I went back to. It was what I knew, and it's what got me through.

From there, I joined the union and spent years on the road building commercial spaces, LCBO, Metro, Food Basics. Monday to Friday, gone. It paid well and it made me better at the job, but it cost me time with my family, time I don't get back. Once my kids got older, I wasn't willing to keep making that trade. So 17 years ago I left a steady union job and started my own business.

Why I still do this

Ask me what I love about the job and it's not the tools, not even the finished product, it's the people. I like sitting down with someone, hearing what they want, and figuring out how to build it. I bring my own experience to the table, but the vision is theirs. Always has been.

I take this seriously. I show up, I do the work right, and I don't cut corners nobody would notice. I notice. After this many years in the trade, that's not something you have to think about anymore. It's just how you work.

Between restoration jobs, commercial builds, and now running my own business for close to two decades, there's not much in a house I haven't seen or done. Framing, finishing, cabinetry, small fix or full gut job, I can handle it, and I'll do it right.

That's the two sides of what I do now: big renovations that run up to three months, and smaller jobs that just need to get done properly. Different size, same standard.

Full circle

Grandfather who could build anything. Father who taught me patience. A kid who never put the shovel down, even through the worst year of his life. This was never really a choice for me, it's just who I am. After all these years, I still treat every job like it matters. Because it does.