Twenty-two people. One bench standard.
KERF. started in 2004 as a two-person shop cutting stair parts in a rented bay off Government Road. Two decades on we run 14,000 square feet in Squamish and a design studio in Vancouver — and we still cut the first sample by hand.
We build the way we'd want it built.
Most shops pick a side. Either you're a production house that hits the date and lets the detail slide, or you're a bench shop that makes beautiful things three months late. We were tired of being asked to choose.
So we built a shop that does both. A five-axis cell handles repeat work and sheet breakdown, which frees the benches for the joints that actually need a human. The result is a schedule you can plan around and a finish you can stand next to.
Every project runs through one lead maker from the first drawing to the last scribe. You get their name, their number, and their honest read on whether what you've drawn will work.
How we work.
Tell you early
If a detail won't build, or a species won't hold, you hear it at drawing stage — not when the crate is open on site.
One number, one lead
The maker who drew it runs it and installs it. No account manager relaying messages to a shop you never see.
Price the whole thing
Hardware, finish, delivery, install, and site protection are in the number. We don't win work on an incomplete quote.
Leave it better
Our crews sweep, wrap, and label. A trade that follows us should be able to start without moving anything.
Wood we can account for.
We hold FSC chain of custody and buy the bulk of our hardwood through two mills in the Fraser Valley and one in Oregon. Local fir and hemlock come off salvage and urban-fell programs where we can get it.
Everything is stickered and sat in our kiln shed until it reads 7–9% on the meter. Nothing goes on a machine until it's stable, which is the unglamorous reason our doors stay flat.
Meet the bench.
Twenty-two makers, four apprentices, and one shop dog who has never once been useful.
Ravi Sandhu
Founder & Lead Maker
Marlo Devereaux
Shop Manager
Nour Haddad
Design Lead
Tom Beckwith
Finishing Lead
Priya Raman
CNC & Programming
Errol Tait
Restoration
Casey Lund
Install Lead
Sana Oyelaran
Estimating
Four years, paid, on the floor.
We take two apprentices a year through a four-year Red Seal pathway. Paid from day one, rotated through every station in the shop, and out on installs from the second year so they learn what a real wall does to a perfect drawing.
Eleven of our twenty-two makers came up through it. Applications open each February.
Get in touchGet in touch
Start With KERF.
The shop that keeps the drawing, the schedule, and the finish honest — from Squamish to the Sunshine Coast.
