The History of the Keefrider Workshop

Keefrider Custom Furniture is collaborative workshop owned and operated by Jay and Sirie Keefrider, located in Santa Barbara, California. Our team works closely with each client to develop tailored furniture designs and handcraft heirloom quality pieces that will last to be loved for generations.

WHAT’S YOUR STYLE?

One of the best parts of working as a fully custom shop is constantly being challenged to explore our aesthetic perspectives and woodworking techniques to a deeper level. Not only does this keep our work in the shop fresh and engaging, but it also allows us to use our broad range of skills to create pieces that are uncompromisingly designed and crafted for each unique person and space.

The one fundamental constant in our work is quality. We source the finest sustainable materials, and meticulously handcraft each piece to an obsessively high standard. All of our joinery is custom designed and built using both traditional hand tools and modern, precision machines to create works of art that stand the test of time both in style and function.

OUR ROOTS

Jay has been designing and building furniture as the head of a professional workshop for over twenty years, but his interest in the craft started as a kid. He landed his first job in a workshop as a teenager, learning to build furniture alongside renowned master craftsman and sculptor Jack Larimore, in Philadelphia. Jay went on to study furniture making and design at the acclaimed Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) in Georgia. After receiving his BFA, Jay packed up and moved to California to fulfill his dream of starting his own custom shop. He founded the Cotterpin Design Workshop, (the predecessor of our current shop), in 2001, where he crafted beautiful custom furniture, as well as special projects for the music and film industries, for over a decade.

In Sirie’s earlier life she was a lab rat, receiving her PhD in Molecular Biology from Yale in 2010, but life in academia eventually left something wanting. She had always been a talented and active artist. When we made the move to glorious Santa Barbara in 2013 for Sirie to take a postdoctoral position at UCSB, she began spending increasing amounts of time working with Jay in his new workshop. She started developing more advanced skills in design and crafting technique, and eventually fell hard for woodworking. In 2015, after 13 years as a research scientist, she decided to trade in the lab coat for a shop apron for good. Since then she has gained significant expertise, particularly in carving and inlay work, such as the inlay featured in the Guitar Desk, and the inlay and carving in the Kraken Table.

Jay and Sirie founded Keefrider Custom Furniture as a partnership in 2015 with this simple goal: to create innovatively designed, meticulously handcrafted furniture that truly represents each client.

If you’d like to come see the workshop we’d love to have you! You can schedule a visit here.