After retiring, this cabinetmaker from Auckland, New Zealand, discovered his finest work yet – building dressers that look straight out of a children’s book!
Woodworking is a challenging craft. It requires loads of patience, knowledge, and plenty of practice. Although it’s a tough skill to master, there are individuals who, through decades of training, become outstanding experts in this field. One of them is this marvelous woodworker named Henk Verhoeff.
Henk, a former cabinetmaker who spent five decades woodworking, has retired from building standard pieces of furniture. Describing it as his “hobby and passion,” he is now using his exceptional talent to design surreal and playful wooden creations that look like they belong in a Disney film.
While his wooden works appear to be cracked, they are fully functional. One might think that Henk draws his design inspiration from fairy tales, but that isn’t the case. He claims that all these ideas solely come from his “twisted brain.”
“I describe my style of furniture as broken and weird,” Henk told Bored Panda. “I like making weird furniture, something that you don’t see in a shop.”
Depending on how complicated the style is, each piece can take up to 80 to 100 hours to finish. Sometimes, Henk even has to discard an ongoing project altogether and start all over again. This isn’t surprising; just by looking at this cabinetmaker’s creations, you’ll think that some of them seem physically impossible to build.
“Sometimes details or angles don’t work and I have to start again. I use recycled New Zealand pine, mostly, but if I can get my hands on some Rimu, I will also use that,” he said.
But no matter how complicated these dressers look, the final product is always an extraordinary piece of expertly-crafted art.
His daughter, Linda, began posting a few photos of these cabinets online, and they instantly gathered widespread attention. In fact, Henk’s wooden works became so popular that she had to make him a separate Facebook page dedicated to showing off her dad’s genius to the world.
As expected, Henk has received a lot of messages from people wanting to buy a piece of his eccentric closets. However, this cabinet maker isn’t ready to bid them farewell yet.
“I started creating them for the pure love of it without the intention of selling them. But when I run out of space, there will be an eBay auction or two. Everything is for sale… except for my wife,” Henk said jokingly.
For now, the magical-looking dressers are decorating his home. And as for his fans, they are left with no choice but to admire his work from afar.
We’ve never seen dressers made like these! After dedicating most of his life to woodworking, it’s good to see that the cabinetmaker didn’t completely retire from it. Instead, he continually improved his craft by building these magnificent pieces of furniture.
Let’s hope that he continues to surprise us by sharing more of his unique creations on social media! See more of Henk’s incredible wooden works on Facebook.