From Forest to Woodshop:
The Art of Furniture Making
8-Week Winter Intensive | January 24 - March 19, 2027
Class meets M-F, 9am to 5pm
Orientation Sunday, Jan 24 from 2pm - 6pm (opening light dinner served)
Students should also anticipate spending at least 20 additional studio hours on weekends and/or evenings to complete assignments and practice skills
Downtown Brattleboro location
HatchSpace is pleased to offer an 8-week, full-time, 320-hour intensive program in the Art of Furniture Making, starting in the winter of 2027. Rooted in an integrated approach of study from forest to woodshop, the program lets participants explore specific woodworking practices in greater depth through key modules in bowl turning and keepsake vessels, green woodworking and chairmaking, casework design and veneering, and wood bending techniques.
Delivered in downtown Brattleboro, Vermont — surrounded by some of the world's finest hardwood forests — students gain not only specialty woodworking skills, but a deeper awareness of the interconnected field of sustainable forestry. The curriculum blends traditional and advanced techniques, combining hand tools with stationary power tools, and is delivered through project-based assignments, forestry and woodworking-related field trips, and a rotating roster of expert instructors. Students leave with a HatchSpace Certificate of Completion.
This program lives as a companion to our other intensives including From Forest to Woodshop: Foundations of Furniture & Wood Products which is offered in the fall, and From Forest to Woodshop: The Craft of Cabinetmaking, offered each spring. Though the programs may be taken in any order, Foundations of Furniture & Wood Products and/or The Craft of Cabinetmaking both offer a more accessible point of entry for those with less woodshop experience. The three programs may be taken singularly or in any order, and are designed to be complimentary with redundancy in content minimized.
Is This Program Right for You?
The Art of Furniture Making is designed for experienced beginners and intermediate woodworkers looking to take their practice to the next level. This should not be the first woodworking course you've ever taken. We recommend that students have previously completed at least a few short-term woodworking classes at either HatchSpace or another similar institution of instruction before joining the intensive, OR be able to demonstrate other relevant experience building wood furniture.
Not sure if your experience is a good fit for the Art of Furniture Making? Email us at info@hatchspace.org — we love to talk about woodworking, and are happy to discuss, and/or if time allows, help you develop a plan of short-form classes to take before the program begins.
The Program
The curriculum is divided into four modules across eight weeks, each of which focus on different woodworking techniques. Students will benefit from a number of expert instructors and create several projects across the program that demonstrate their newly acquired skills.
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We’ll cover different methods of box-making and joinery techniques, and spend a full week in our lathe workshop. Students will design and create a keepsake vessel project, as well as learn how to turn hollow lidded forms, and bowls.
What you'll learn:
Rough milling techniques
Box-making techniques
Bowl turning
Hollow-lidded vessel or turned shrink pot
Sharpening gouges
What you'll make: A wooden box, a bowl, and a lidded vessel.
Lead Instructor: Heather Tauck
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Module 2 explores additional methods of working with green wood, traditional chair construction, and building with hand tools. Green woodworking is the use of freshly sourced lumber that still contains a high level of moisture. Students will explore fundamental ways in which green wood is manipulated, from riving, shaping, bending and joining techniques to using green wood tools such as a drawknife and shave horse.
What you'll learn:
Riving, splitting, and shaping green wood with hand tools
Steam bending wood
Layout, boring, and reaming mortises
Carving and shaping the chair seat
Undercarriage assembly
Working with hide glue
Finishing techniques
What you'll make: A balloon back chair (completed in Part 2).
Lead instructor: Charles Thompson
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This module guides students through designing and constructing either a small freestanding cabinet or a wall-mounted cabinet made from veneered panels. Key topics include creating shop-made veneers, applying veneer to sub-panels, traditional marquetry techniques, door-making, fitting drawers, and selecting appropriate hardware.
What you'll learn:
Shop-made veneers and panels, resawing
Joinery for veneered panels
Traditional marquetry techniques
Vacuum bag clamping
Lumbercore door construction
Fitting drawers
Hardware selection
What you'll make: A small veneered case piece with an optional door and drawer.
Lead instructor: Timothy Coleman
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Students return to their Part 1 chairs to complete construction — continuing work in green wood, traditional joinery, and hand tool techniques through undercarriage assembly and finishing.
What you'll make: A completed balloon back chair.
Lead instructor: Charles Thompson
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This module examines wood as a medium for artistic expression. Students focus their projects on form rather than function, learning the technical skills to create a curved wooden object such as a wall hanging or floor-standing sculpture. Topics include methods for bending and shaping wood, working from full-scale drawings, constructing bending templates, selecting appropriate adhesives and wood species for bending, and strategies for joinery and clamping on curved components. The module also covers how curved elements are incorporated into furniture, and which techniques to use for practical design.
What you'll learn:
Full-scale drafting
Building bending forms
Bent lamination
Steam bending
Basics of coopering
Kerf-cut bending
Brick layering / stack lamination
Hot pipe bending
What you'll make: An experimental, non-functional art sculpture.
Instructors: Charlie Ryland, Heather Tauck
Meet Our Instructors
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Heather Tauck serves as the Program Leader for the intensive and has been teaching at HatchSpace since 2022. She is a graduate of The Evergreen State College and The North Bennet Street School, and she brings 15 years of woodworking experience to her role. She cares deeply about creating a classroom atmosphere focused on safety, community building and self-expression. Heather believes that woodworking classes offer students more than practical hands-on skills—they inspire creativity, boost confidence, and foster a sense of belonging, which can have a meaningful impact on students’ lives and help them connect with what truly matters. In her personal practice, she is interested in making functional pieces that explore modern and contemporary forms, illustrate expert craftsmanship, and highlight the natural beauty of wood. Based in Western Massachusetts, Heather makes and exhibits her work locally. You can view her creations at HT Woodshop and on Instagram.
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Charles Thompson makes chairs and carvings in a humble workshop on a hill in western Massachusetts, and has been teaching at HatchSpace since 2023. His work reflects on vernacular forms, and uses a mixed vocabulary of techniques, patterns, and materials that speak to the efficacy of hand work. He typically works straight from the log, splitting, bending, manipulating, then rejoining wood in a process that leverages personal intention and celebrates common materials. He senses, in the back of his mind and now in his work, a deepening curiosity as to what could count as his own tradition. Learn more about Charles at his website and on Instagram.
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Timothy Coleman has been creating custom furniture in his rural Massachusetts workshop since 1989 following a year-long apprenticeship in Seattle and two years of study with James Krenov at the College of the Redwoods. Tim’s exquisitely detailed, sculptural furniture is exhibited in galleries and museums throughout the US. He is renowned for his patterned and textured surfaces that are embellished with a range of innovative methods including low relief carving, marquetry, embossing with steel stamps and parquetry. In addition to creating his award-winning furniture, Tim teaches and writes about woodworking and has been featured in print and video in Fine Woodworking and other magazines. His most recent project with Fine Woodworking is a sixteen-part video series featuring the creation of one of his signature marquetry cabinets. You can view Timothy’s work on his website and on Instagram.
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Charlie Ryland is a chair maker, teacher and researcher interested in working with pre-industrial tools, techniques, and styles to unpack their stories and adapt their forms to the modern context. First introduced to the trade in his father’s cabinet shop in rural Idaho, and later trained in the North Bennet Street School’s Fine Furniture and Cabinet program, his work is motivated by an interest in the overlap between class and craft consciousness, their respective roles in the systems of knowledge creation and dispersal, and the ways in which both can be used to build and shape community through the generation of history, meaning and solidarity. Learn more about Charlie at his website and on Instagram.
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Tom Bodett is a lifelong carpenter and woodworker who founded HatchSpace in 2019. In addition to his successful 40-year career in publishing and broadcasting, he now devotes himself to serving the rural communities he has lived in, and has always lived in. With half of his adult life spent in Alaska and the other half in Vermont, Bodett has learned to appreciate the beauty and the bounty of our natural landscape and the indomitable spirit of the communities that occupy it. Through hands-on effort and philanthropy, Tom and his wife Rita work to leave these places better than they found them, and have learned when to leave well enough alone.
How to Enroll
Important Dates:
Sunday, Jan 24 - Friday, Mar 19, 2027
Class meets M-F, 9am to 5pm
Orientation Sun. Jan 24 from 2pm - 6pm (opening light dinner served)
Students should also anticipate spending at least 20 additional studio hours on weekends and/or evenings to complete assignments and practice skills
Other Considerations
Attendance - Students are expected to attend all scheduled class sessions. The pace is rigorous, and absences not only present difficulty for the individual student, but disrupt the learning of the cohort. A limited number of excused absences, usually up to three, may be permitted with the permission of the lead instructor. Students with unexcused or excessive absences may be dismissed without a refund.
Inclement Weather - In the event of a one day weather-related closure or delay, every effort will be made to make up the missed content within normally scheduled class hours at the discretion and direction of the lead instructor. Some instructors may or may not be able to adjust their schedules. In the event that three or more days of class are missed, HatchSpace may offer additional makeup days either on weekend days or during the week immediately preceding the published closing date of the program as determined by the lead instructor and executive director.
Community Standards - Students are expected to uphold all community standards, values, policies and member agreements of HatchSpace. Most standards may be viewed online here, but class specific standards will also be reviewed and agreed to at Orientation. Students who do not uphold standards may be dismissed without a refund.
Technical Standards - Students must be able to lift and/or maneuver tools or materials weighing up to 50lbs, possess gross and fine motor skills to manipulate tools and materials, work sitting or standing at a workbench for up to 8 hours (with reasonable breaks), be mobile within the work facility, crouch, stoop, crawl or kneel to adjust tools and materials, work in close proximity to classmates, work in a loud environment, be able to visualize three dimensional objects, receive instruction in English and communicate with instructors/staff in English, and generally be prepared for an educationally and creatively stimulating, challenging and fast paced program.
No application deadline, no fee to apply. Participants are reviewed and selected on a rolling basis.
Scholarships available. See section below for more information.
Our intensive is perfect for advanced beginners and intermediate woodworkers looking to take their practice to the next level.
Our intensive welcomes those at the beginning of their woodworking journey, though we strongly recommend students complete at least a few short-term woodworking classes before joining the intensive, or have some prior experience in woodworking or carpentry-related fields. We offer a range of short-term classes that can easily be completed before the intensive begins, and we’re happy to advise interested students on which short courses may work best. Please reach out to us to discuss at info@hatchspace.org. For beginners with less experience in a woodshop, you may also wish to consider our companion programs including From Forest to Woodshop: Foundations of Furniture & Wood Products, or From Forest to Woodshop: The Craft of Cabinetmaking, both of which offer a more extensive and accessible point of entry to woodworking.
Tuition for Winter 2027 is $7,200. Tuition includes:
320 clock hours of expert instruction
A private and devoted Sjoberg workbench and station in a shared studio workshop that is used only by other students and instructors of the intensive
Access and training for safe use of all needed stationary machines and non-consumable equipment
Tuition does not include:
Most materials (i.e. most lumber, some hand tools). Students should budget a minimum of $800 for lumber and personal tools. A specific list will be provided to enrolled students. Required lumber will be purchased through the HatchSpace store.
Consumables (i.e. glue, sandpaper, finishes)
Housing or board / food
Deposit Required.
A $625 deposit is required to reserve your seat in the intensive.
Payment Plan Available
Our payment plan distributes the cost of tuition across three installments with payments due on the following schedule:
$625 due at time of registration
$2,191 due by November 1
$2,192 due by December 1
$2,192 due by January 1
For any student registering after November 1, the payment plan will be adjusted to two installments.
Withdrawals, Refunds & Cancellations
A student who withdraws from the course 45 days or more from the start of class (by December 10) will receive 100% of their deposit and fees, less a $95 non-refundable registration fee. No refunds will be issued for withdrawals less than 45 days from the start of the class (December 11 or after).
External Scholarships
Students with demonstrated financial need and who are interested in the program for vocational training and career advancement may be eligible for financial assistance through state and other entities. Please indicate your interest when you apply so that HatchSpace may advise you towards different external financial resources. We also encourage students to do their own research as new external scholarships are regularly discovered.
Partial Scholarships through HatchSpace Scholarship Fund
HatchSpace seeks to make our programs accessible to early career & economically disadvantaged individuals. We also acknowledge how women, LGBTQIA+ community members, and people of color have historically been under-represented and under-celebrated in trade and craft careers. With this in mind, HatchSpace makes a limited number of need-based, partial scholarships available via the HatchSpace Scholarship Fund. Awards range in amounts up to 75%, though the highest level of awards will be most limited and most competitive. Those students who wish to be considered for need-based scholarships should indicate their intention on the enrollment for, and we strongly encourage students seeking scholarship funds to apply no later than October 11, 2026. A $625 deposit is still required at time of registration while awaiting scholarship consideration. In the event a student seeking scholarship is unsuccessful in obtaining an award that meets their needs for participation, the deposit will be fully refunded.
Awards will be determined by November 1 for those who applied by October 11, and any remainder funds distributed on a rolling basis thereafter.
Payment Plans are also available to all students.
Note: HatchSpace reserves the right to update and/or modify registration and/or program policies
✺ Frequently Asked Questions ✺
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At this time, HatchSpace does not offer housing directly, however, HatchSpace has many connections to providers of local housing and we can assist any student needing temporary housing in the Brattleboro area in their efforts to secure housing. We invite students who may need assistance in securing housing to be in communication with us at info@hatchspace.org.
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Yes! As stated above, partial scholarships up to 75% off are available. Please see the “How to Enroll” section above for more information.
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Amtrak provides service to Brattleboro via The Vermonter train line, and the MOOver! operates bus routes in our region. If one were able to secure housing in the immediate downtown area, it is conceivable that a car might not be required. That said, students should also know that cabs and ride share services are less available in Brattleboro than in other cities, and we encourage you to thoughtfully consider these aspects ahead of time. Most people who live in Brattleboro have access to or share a car.
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We are currently working to develop a materials list and will communicate any tools and equipment that students should secure themselves, to enrolled students. We suggest that students budget a minimum of $800 for lumber and tools.
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While class will not meet on the weekends, students should plan on at least 20 additional hours on the evenings or weekends to complete course work. With this in mind, students may find it helpful to plan ahead which evenings or weekends across the 8 weeks they may devote to additional studio time. In addition, though unlikely, if three or more days of class are canceled due to weather, HatchSpace may schedule make-up sessions on the weekends.
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Our program is designed for adult learners. If you will soon be but not yet turn 18 by the start of the program, we encourage you to reach out to us to discuss before enrolling.
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Students leave with a Certificate of Completion issued by HatchSpace that verifies the 320 hours of woodworking instruction. At this time, we are not able to offer college credit or credentials.
Why HatchSpace?
Founded in 2019, HatchSpace is home to a growing community of innovators working with wood like no other. We provide access to the tools and training necessary to build what you love, and launch careers in the trades and crafts. As our founder, Tom Bodett says, we’re all at our best when we’re making. Learn more about HatchSpace by watching the video below, and by visiting our About page above.