One Facebook post in early 2020 changed the trajectory of Jeffrey Feldstein’s career.
While helping a friend build garage shelves for his wife’s ‘many’ Christmas trees, she took pictures of the project and posted them to the social media site, unbeknownst to him.
“Within three hours of her post, five people contacted me saying, I want [these shelves],” he says.
Feldstein, formerly an insurance salesman and restaurant owner, had just finished getting his real estate license. He’d always been handy and liked to “tinker” around his house, building things like an heirloom wooden cradle when his first child was born. But the primarily self-taught woodworker had never considered creating things for other people.
With Covid well underway and a bleak real estate market, though, Feldstein decided to give it a shot, starting a woodworking business out of his garage.
Next month, Waxhaw Woodworking will move from its current 2,500-square-foot workshop to a new 6,000-square-foot one. The demand, Feldstein says, hasn’t stopped since that initial Facebook post.
“Every month from the day I started has been better than the prior month,” he says. “It has never, ever been slow.”
Feldstein doesn’t do garage shelves anymore. Think stunning statement dining tables, like one of his latest commissions, a 12-foot-long table made from solid walnut, as well as outdoor dining set-ups and custom-built-in cabinets.
“Woodworking is a real huge passion of mine,” he says. “So, to me, I don’t go to work anymore. I go to play.”