The “incubator” was the bench room that all new Cabinet & Furniture Making (CFM) students started in a rigorous 1st semester of drafting, hand tool tuning, and usage techniques; culminating in the 1st major project, a Shaker nightstand.

Here we see the CFM Class of 2007 just before the summer break. Instructor Claire Fruitman is seated on the floor in the foreground.

After attending part-time night and weekend classes at North Bennet in 2003-2004, David knew that he wanted to take his life in a different direction. After working in corporate Information Technology since 1993, he wanted to pursue a new vocation, a noble trade whereby he could find fulfillment.

He applied and got accepted into the full-time Cabinet and Furniture Making program for the class starting in February of 2005; it would prove to be a life changing and enriching experience that would irrevocably change him.

It was a risk. Leaving a good-paying stable job to attend full-time entailed sacrifices. With the first semester done in May of 2005, his instructor Clair Fruitman suggested to the class that they try to get a summer job working in a cabinet shop. David worked in the summer of 2005 at Shaw Woodworking Inc. in Pocassett, MA on Cape Cod. The experience at Shaw Woodworking taught him the basic skills of modern kitchen and bath cabinet design and fabrication and exposed him to using modern machinery that opened up a whole new awareness of the trade within himself.

Cabinet and Furniture Making Class (CFM) 2007. Taken 01/30/2007. Scarcely 3 months before David would acquire a 1,000 square foot bay on Finlay Road in Orleans MA and outfit and open his cabinetry business - Wychmere Woodworks LLC. David chose to name his business after Wychmere Harbor in Harwich Port, MA.

The ensuing 3 semesters would see David, based on the experience at Shaw Woodworking prioritize his skills against learning techniques that lent themselves to faster production; eschewing inlays, veneers, and heavy ornamentation in favor of furniture that could be made more economically time wise. The time spent at Shaw Woodworking impressed upon David that the bulk to the market to be serviced in order to sustain a business would have to focus on cabinets and built-ins, the furniture offering would help build prestige but it would not be a driver of sales.

Opening Wychmere Woodworks was the biggest and most ambitious thing David had attempted thus far. Wychmere Woodworks LLC operated at the 43 Finlay Road address in Orleans, Massachusetts between April 2007, and closed permanently on December 1, 2012. David Flanagan had been barely out of the North Bennet Street School the previous February upon completing his education, before establishing his own cabinetmaking business.

This small, well-equipped, high-end artisan shop of 1000 square feet was regularly featured in the local press. Wychmere Woodworks specialized in one-of-a-kind projects that were designed in full AutoCAD to exacting tolerances, artfully and creatively designed, and precisely executed. In its brief existence Wychmere Woodworks distinguished itself as one of the top shops on Cape Cod; not having CNC tooling or a larger workforce, but rather relying on traditional craftsmanship, manually operated tools, and for most of the time being staffed as a one-man operation. The fabrication process was a unique melding of high technology with the AutoCAD design work; matched with an older-style fabrication process which during many of the phases included hand tools akin to the kind that have been in use for hundreds of years.

Though due to a poor economy, stiff competition from larger shops, and irrevocably changed consumer buying habits, the shop closed on 12/1/2012. The craftsmanship that distinguished the Wychmere Woodworks name lives on in the memories of Orleans locals, our client’s homes, and on the Web.