Robin Helms didn’t study to be a woodworker. He got his degree in biology — but a few years after graduation, he found himself enjoying building furniture as much as fieldwork.
Now the 35-year-old runs his woodworking business, Bird’s Nest Design, out of a group studio in Sunnyland — a Bellingham neighborhood home to numerous artisans, makers and local businesses. He shares studio space with fellow woodworkers Heather DeVries, Cass Tiegs, Alex Cohen and Ant Chapin; together, they make up the Sunnyland Sawdust Collective.
The collective took its current shape in May 2024, though Helms, Tiegs and Chapin worked together beforehand. Members own separate businesses, but help each other with processes and design ideas, rent each other’s tools and occasionally collaborate on projects. This dynamic adds camaraderie to what would otherwise be a solitary trade.
“It’s cool to have all these folks part of our wood shop, because they’re bringing new energy and life to woodworking,” Chapin said. He added that the shop’s gender diversity “keeps us more well-rounded.”
In another community, the Sawdust Collective’s mixed demographics might seem unusual. But in Chapin’s view, it’s par for the course in Bellingham.
“There’s a lot of appreciation for quality craftsmanship in this town, from previous woodworkers, previous potters and so forth — artists of all kinds in Bellingham,” Chapin said. “I think people really appreciate that kind of craft, and young people are aware of that.”
Sunnyland Sawdust Collective members
All collective members build fine furniture, though Helms is also specialized in custom cabinetry. DeVries excels at rocking chairs. Lathes are Cohen’s specialty; a therapist by trade, he’s the only studiomate who isn’t a full-time woodworker. Chapin’s wife, Keri Bean, 50, also uses the space for her eco-friendly interior design business, Nesting Instincts Interior Styling.
Chapin is the most senior tradesman, and his projects are versatile: “Whatever people want, I can make,” he joked. A former mountain guide, Chapin began dabbling in professional carpentry around 2008 while building houses. He then founded his own business, Carpenter Ant LLC — an ironic twist considering his younger self was “totally anti-logging.”
“I still feel that way,” he continued. “But I also knew I wanted to use my hands, and I wanted to work with some substance that comes from the earth more directly — paperwork? Not so great for me. So I kind of take trees to the point of wood, and I stop right there.”
Helms started as Chapin’s employee during the COVID-19 pandemic, then joined him as a shopmate in 2022. But before diving into woodworking, he spent several seasons doing biology fieldwork in Oregon, Wyoming and Colorado.
One winter, Helms went home to Vermont and built an acoustic guitar in his dad’s woodshop. The passion project led to a job crafting Shoji doors in Montana. It was intended for the off-season, but Helms stuck with it — and is still going strong eight years later.
Tiegs, 26, was the third person to join the collective. She took a job at a horse barn after high school, knowing “college was always going to be there,” and discovered a love for hands-on work. This led her to apprentice with another Sunnyland woodworker, Terra Firma Design.
DeVries, 37, is the “greenhorn” of the four full-time woodworkers. After closing her dog-walking business in 2021, she responded to a Craigslist ad for a local woodshop, who hired her based on personality (and despite a lack of experience). When the shop’s owner retired, he passed his rocking chair design on to DeVries.
Projects, process and collaboration
Helms’ father was also a custom furniture maker, though he preferred “being by himself and focusing on his work.” At the Sawdust Collective, however, the studiomates provide company, inspiration and sometimes even labor.
For example, Tiegs recently hired Helms to help her with a library install. Woodworkers will also collaborate with Bean’s interior design business by referring clients back and forth to each other, which Bean said benefits the collective as a whole.
Chapin said certain projects — such as large kitchens or extensive cabinet build-outs — are too much for any one woodworker. “But none of us have employees, so we treat each other as a subcontractor and hire one another to help us complete a project,” he added.
Chapin, owns the majority of the collective’s tools (which other shopmates use for a small rental fee) and works with reclaimed wood. Helms’ CNC (Computer Numerical Control) machine also opens “a whole different layer of options and possibilities” for the collective.
When designing cabinets and furniture, Helms starts with a software called Mozaik. The program allows him to separately model each part on a computer, then use the CNC machine to make precise cuts.
But cabinets and furniture aren’t all Helms creates: The mushroom-shaped tap handles at Otherlands Beer, for example, are his handiwork. He crafted the first as a gift for Owners Karolina Lobrow and Ben Howe, who then commissioned seven more.
“I like bringing in organic shapes and doing things that are a little less structured than a lot of furniture, where it’s very planned-out and very exact,” he said. “It’s fun to just carve up wood and do something that’s a little more creative … and definitely inspired by the natural world, which is what my background was.”
DeVries occasionally uses Helms’ CNC machine to cut seats or notches on chair legs. She estimates it takes her 50 hours to build one rocking chair: two weeks to cut parts from wood, then additional time to glue and construct the chair. Most parts — from the rockers to the spindles and crest (the ornamental rail on a chair back) — are cut by hand with table or band saws.
Finally, Chapin is working on a project for a repeat client in the neighborhood. After a kitchen remodel, the clients had salvaged and stored excess wood from their walls. Chapin’s job is to fashion that Douglas fir — likely sourced from Lake Whatcom in the early 20th century — into new shelving units.
“I’ll glue it all up here, clean it, sand it, prep it, shape it, and then deliver it to my finisher — who’s in Sunnyland as well — and he’ll spray it out,” Chapin explained.
Once ready, Chapin will deliver the shelves to the client’s home for installation. “The wood that’s coming out of his walls will come through my shop, kind of metamorphose into the next phase, become shelves,” he continued, “and then go right back into his house as the next use for the next 50 years.”
Bellingham’s ‘creative little niche’
Beyond their breadth of skills, members of the Sunnyland Sawdust Collective are notable for their young ages. Woodworking isn’t often associated with millennials or Gen-Z — but four out of five collective members are under 40.
“Our generation was told to go to college, right?” DeVries added. “I did get that education, and worked in an office for a while — but then realized it’s just not satisfying. And so I think a lot of us are finding that we want to work with our hands, and we didn’t know that that was an option.”
What’s more, women made up just 3.1% of carpenters in 2020 according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. DeVries has personally experienced being “shut down” by older male craftsmen. Tiegs is passionate about teaching, but often found herself the youngest among her students — and one of very few women.
Despite a reputation for misogyny in trades, both Tiegs and DeVries feel at home in the Bellingham woodworking community. They’ve talked about offering female-focused woodworking classes to “pave the way” for more women.
The collective’s inclusive atmosphere could be chalked up to generational shifts, or its members’ welcoming personalities. But Chapin said it’s also indicative of the culture in Bellingham.
“Sunnyland is just a super fun, creative little niche in town,” Chapin added. “A lot of folks I know actually work right in this neighborhood and live right here … Our little Sunnyland Sawdust Collective is sort of like a microcosm of the Sunnyland community collective.”
Cocoa Laney is CDN’s lifestyle editor; reach her at cocoalaney@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 128.
