Who we are
Forty years offine woodworking
From yacht interiors to heirloom furniture — the story behind the bench.
Our founder
Carlos Taylor-Swanson
He built a clubhouse at twelve that drew the attention of city planners. He has been building ever since.
Raised in a creative family, Carlos Taylor-Swanson moved from picture framing into carpentry, and from carpentry into yacht interiors — working the boatyards of Anacortes and Tacoma, fitting out vessels up to 240 feet. Marine work teaches things a furniture shop rarely has to learn: how wood behaves when it is never dry, how to build to the millimetre inside a hull where no two surfaces are parallel, and how to make joinery that will not open at sea.
In 2006, seeing a gap in the Pacific Northwest for thoughtful, custom furniture and cabinetry, he founded Madera. The studio has combined architectural rigour with personal meaning ever since — design-build work where the same people draw it, make it and install it.
Our philosophy
We don't follow trends. We follow stories.
Every piece begins with your story. Every line is earned. Nothing wasted. Wood, metal, glass, paint and stain — revealed, never disguised.
We build for permanence rather than fashion, which has practical consequences: solid stock instead of substrate where it matters, traditional joinery where tradition still outperforms, and hand-applied finishes that can be repaired in forty years rather than replaced.
It also means we will occasionally talk you out of something. If a detail will not survive the way you actually live, we would rather say so at the drawing stage than deliver a piece that fails quietly in year three.
The studio & team
The people at the bench
Six makers, one shop manager, one general manager, and a metal fabricator who handles everything that isn't wood.
Brian
General Manager
Justin
Shop Manager
Theo
Metal Fabrication & Special Projects
Amy
Studio Woodworker
Jane
Studio Woodworker & Social Media
Kevin
Studio Woodworker
And the shop dogs
Quality control, morale, and a strict enforcement of lunch breaks.
Ned
Shop dog
Lily & Mochi
Shop dogs
Snoop & Tater Tot
Shop dogs
Leland
Shop dog
How we work
Design-build, start to finish
01 — Discovery
Start with Story
We begin with a conversation about your space, your rhythm, and the kind of presence you want to create. Not a product list — a conversation. What the room is for, how you move through it, what you already own that has to live alongside the new work.
02 — Design
Design with Discipline
Sketches become measured drawings. You see shop drawings, material samples and finish samples before a single board is cut, along with a written estimate and a dated schedule. Nothing goes into production on a verbal maybe.
03 — Creation
Build with Care
Stock is selected board by board, grain matched, and cut in our Tacoma shop. Traditional joinery where it earns its place, modern hardware where that serves you better. Every piece is dry-fitted complete before it is finished.
04 — Installation
Deliver Presence
Our own crew delivers and installs, scribing to walls that are never quite plumb. We leave the site clean, walk you through care, and stay reachable afterwards — a repairable finish is only useful if someone will repair it.
Come and see the shop
The studio is on Court A in downtown Tacoma. Visitors are welcome by appointment — and there are usually dogs.