Kings Custom Recraft

Having grown up in Rural Ontario as many of you may also have, I was exposed to a very unique environment. People for the most part didn't buy many things for their home and property, or hire someone to build things but instead did it all themselves. And if you didn't know a lot about a certain task you would call a friend neighbor or relative who did to come and help. As I child I recall everything from helping my dad tackle a plumbing or electrical repair, Build a new ladder, heading out to the forest several weekends in a row to drop cut and split firewood for the coming winter, or being the gopher for a group of friends and family as they literally built my grandparents a house from the ground up. I often wondered why my dad was constantly dragging home all manor of things from various job sites or the side of the road to be stored in the shed, or carefully de-nailing and stacking all of the wood from a fallen down shed, even straightening out the nails to be re-used. But as I got older and watched as year after year these things were re-used and incorporated into countless new projects the magic and importance of these things became clear to me. I now love taking friends to my moms house and saying "My parents built this house. Literally!" The stone work, the plumbing, the electrical, the shed, even much of the furniture and built in features. Every piece of that house tells a great story. It is from this that I gained not only the knowledge and confidence to tackle all manor of projects, but an appreciation for saving and re-using all kinds of things. In my adult life, I have often been astounded at how more and more we are becoming a throw away culture. All it takes is a walk down the street in Toronto any day of the week to see just how bad that is. But at the same time, a new word emerged. "Free-cycling" is a term that has become very popular in the past decade or so and involves an odd combination of dumpster diving, garbage hunting, and re-purposing a wide variety of otherwise discarded materials. I love this movement! But, there is a part of me that thinks "Hey wait, my dad and all of those intrepid farmers I had the pleasure of growing up with were free-cyclers long before it was cool." That being said, it is truly refreshing to see this becoming a mainstream idea. This is really the driving idea behind King's custom re-craft. A desire to carry on that tradition in my own way and share my creations with others.