I’ve always believed that if you want something done right, and done beautifully, you roll up your sleeves and do it yourself.
By Jaré Emile Dippenaar
When I bought my first house in Randburg, I didn’t just go shopping for mass-produced furniture. I designed my own. I wanted pieces that meant something. Objects that told a story. Reflected who I am.
It’s perfectly fine to fill the space around your heirlooms with furniture you won’t mind replacing next season. But those special pieces? They’re meant to stay. Maybe one day, my nephews, nieces, or even my own children will inherit them. Not because they have to, but because the stories are soaked into the grain.
I was lucky enough to grow up on a farm built in the 1800s, surrounded by every kind of tool a young creative mind could dream of. None of them ran on electricity, but many had levers, cranks, and mystery. It was heaven. Later, I was blessed again with a dad who adored tools, and I had the honour of misplacing them as fast as he bought them. I learned to build whatever my imagination could conjure.
So when I bought my first home, I wanted to impress my fiancé with something unique. But with beer-bottle pockets and champagne tastes, I decided to make it myself.
I wanted a solid wood dining table. The kind of table where people laugh too loudly, break bread, cry into their wine, and maybe even fall in love again. A place for stories.
Full of confidence, I dragged my fiancé to a timber merchant. A cute date, I thought. We’d pick out some wood together. Real wood. The kind you have to lift, not assemble with an Allen key.
I marched in and declared, “We’re here to buy some wood.”
The merchant blinked. “We sell timber. What kind are you looking for?”
“Tree… erm… table timber,” I stammered. My confidence evaporated on contact. My fiancé could tell. So could the merchant.
“We’ve got some ash that should work,” he offered.
“Ash! That’s exactly what I was thinking,” I replied, already blushing.
We followed a forklift-wielding clerk, who rearranged what looked like ten tons of timber to reveal a stack of planks. He cut the straps and fanned them out like a pack of cards.
“Thank you,” I said politely, crouching to inspect them like I was shopping for pineapples—lots of thoughtful ‘hmms’ and ‘ahhs’ to hide my cluelessness.
“What would you suggest?” I asked.
“Well, depends on what you’re making.”
“A table.”
“Oh, then none of these will do. You’ll need American ash. Older trees give longer pieces with fewer blemishes.”
More forklift ballet, another stack dropped in front of us.
“You choose,” I said, handing over my dignity. These planks were fuzzy, all different lengths, and would need to be glued together. I was well out of my depth.
That’s how I ended up at Made in Workshop (MIW), a 1,100 square metre makerspace in Randburg. That’s where everything changed.
They had every tool I could dream of; CNC routers, laser cutters, mills, plasma cutters, a full woodshop. But what I really found was a community.
It’s like walking into a gym or a bar. Intimidating at first, but once you’re in, you realise you’re surrounded by people who love beauty, honour skill, and are eager to help. The tools are there, yes, but you don’t have to be an expert. I certainly wasn’t.
I took the free classes, asked endless questions, and relied on the generosity of the people around me. My table wasn’t made by me alone. It was made by us. And by “us,” I mean I traded my artistic skills for supervised building time.
Thank you, Keith and Dean—not just for helping me make the table, but for showing me how to make it beautifully.
Every time we sit down to dinner, I think of the story behind it. And if anyone asks why gays have the nicest things? Well, it’s because we make them ourselves.
And with the largest makerspace in my neighbourhood, it’s not just possible. It’s probable.
I can’t wait for my children to sit at this table one day. I say that like I have a plan for the children par – still working on it. But the table’s ready. It’s patient. It’ll wait.
If you’ve ever felt the urge to build something meaningful, I can’t recommend MIW enough. It’s the kind of place that respects good tools, rewards curiosity, and doesn’t care what you look like. Only what you make.
And trust me – once you’ve built something beautiful with your own hands, you’ll never look at furniture, or yourself, the same way again.
Just go visit. Ask anyone to show you around.
10 Naaf Street, Strydom Park, Randburg.
