Built by the craftsman whose name is on it.

The story

From a hardware store childhood to earning the name on the van.

My father owned the largest chain of retail hardware stores in South Africa. I grew up in those stores — surrounded by power tools, timber, and people who built things. I got an industrial lathe for my birthday at eleven years old. Building wasn't a hobby I picked up. It was the language I grew up speaking.

I spent my thirties in the corporate world — building and running medium and large businesses. I was good at it. But somewhere along the way I realised I was spending my days hunched over a desk doing something I tolerated, when I could be outside in the sun doing something I loved. So I made the call. I walked away from the boardroom and started building decks.

I haven't looked back once.

What I didn't expect was how much the name would matter to me. My brother suggested The Decksmith early on, and something about it resonated immediately. The -smith tradition — blacksmith, goldsmith, wordsmith — carries a weight that the word "builder" simply doesn't. A smith is someone who has put in the time. Who has earned their craft through years of hard, exacting work until the skill becomes instinct.

The honest truth? In those early years, as much as I loved the work, I didn't feel I'd yet earned the name. A decade of building will fix that — and it did. Hundreds of decks, pergolas, and outdoor spaces later, personally built from first concept to final clean-up, I can say without hesitation: I've earned it.