About us

My love of DIY started very early when watching my father build our homes in England. I was mixing concrete and laying bricks by the time I was 10! I gained more DIY skills through renovating my first home, a 100 year old English terraced house, and have continued the DIY theme in my current NZ home, saving thousands on tradie bills along the way.

​I broadened my practical skills and technical abilities working in the wide-ranging field of natural sciences. I’ve also been an IT trainer, a teacher, a lecturer and even a recruit trainer in the military before taking time out of the workforce to raise a family. Originally joining Auckland Central Community Shed as a Member, I was their Co-Ordinator until restarting my current studies in Trade Skills.

​Sharing what I know has always been important to me. So with a passion to help other women experience the satisfaction of building, fixing and creating things, we’ve created NZ’s first WomenzShed.

My first degree involved 3D design, wood, metals and plastics. I’ve always loved making things. If you sew, working with wood is the same principle, cutting up materials and putting them together.

My second degree was in furniture making and design after which I taught woodwork to women. I then learnt carpentry and joinery, which set me up to jump straight into a building apprenticeship when I arrived in New Zealand 19 years ago. For 10 years I was an eco builder, building from natural materials, rammed earth and mud brick. For the last 4 years I have project managed more conventional residential building projects.

​I recently taught on a tiny house course. I am passionate about supporting women to be confident with power tools, to do jobs around their homes, make things from wood, or enter the building industry, if that desire is there.

I’m a spatial designer by training and have worked in architecture & design for some years before realizing I missed using my hands and knowing how things were made. I’d always loved being in the workshop at uni and also loved experiencing design and making under the same roof when I worked for a furniture designer.

During the first lockdown, I designed a tiny house for my partner and, realizing I would need more building skills, started working for a tiny house cabinet maker. That year I also started having woodworking dates with two other women makers where we would borrow each other’s tools, ideas, support and empower each other to create and make. The three of us now happily work as makers so I’m definitely grateful for what bringing women together around making can do!

My background is in environmental science but in 2019 after 5 years of dreaming of building my own tiny house I decided to start my DIY journey. Fast forward 3 years later and I am living on a beautiful piece of land in West Auckland in a house on wheels which I built myself, completely off grid, with another dream of being soon completely self-sufficient.

I have done numerous tiny house workshops, as student, a volunteer and now as a builder as I am now in my second year of a carpentry apprenticeship. I have been building tiny houses as a full time job for the past year and half and absolutely love it. I am really excited to be able to share with other women my passion for woodwork and cannot wait to grow a community of women makers