About the shop

Two carpenters and a dust collector.

Rivet & Pine started in 2011 in a rented bay off 118 Avenue with one table saw and a truck that needed a new alternator.

Ben spent twelve years on commercial millwork crews before that — the kind of work where a cabinet run has to be perfect because it’s going into a hospital and nobody gets to come back and fix it. Tomas came up through residential renovation and can look at a 1912 house and tell you which walls have moved and by how much.

Between us that’s twenty-two years in the trade. We’ve deliberately stayed two people, because the moment you have eight carpenters you spend your days managing rather than building, and the work gets worse.

We take on roughly fifteen projects a year. That’s enough to make a living and few enough that we’re both physically in the shop on every single one.

How we work

Four things we won’t budge on

• The quote is the price. Written, fixed, and it does not move unless you change the scope — in which case you approve the new number first, in writing.
• We give you a real date. Not “sometime in the spring.” If something slips, you hear it from us the day we know, not the day it matters.
• Solid materials, always. Hardwood face frames, plywood boxes, no particleboard, no melamine pretending to be wood. It costs more and it lasts thirty years instead of eight.
• We come back. Wood moves with the seasons. A door that binds in January is normal and we’ll come and adjust it for the first two years, no charge, no argument.