De Groot Creations - Bespoke & Unique Carpentry

De Groot Creations - Bespoke & Unique Carpentry I create bespoke hand made furniture or artistic pieces in the Wollondilly
region of Sydney Australia. My work is unique, inimitable, exclusive and exquisite.

I work with native timbers & turn them into unique one-of-a-kind items.

I restored this chair from the 50ties, it was damaged due to having been submerged in a flood inside a hotel near Lismor...
20/04/2026

I restored this chair from the 50ties, it was damaged due to having been submerged in a flood inside a hotel near Lismore. After pulling the chair apart I had the metal mechanism sandblasted before I could restore it, it was too hard to try and clean it by hand. After that, the mechanism was given a coat of rust preventitive, a coat of rust free prime and two layers of black gloss paint. The frame/base of the seat was still in good condition but as you can see, not the seat itself, I removed that first. I then reapplied 3mm thick ply back on it with glue only, you can see all the clamps I had to use to ensure I maintained the shape of the seat and then added a layer of oak veneer on top. The edges were also covered with oak veneer. After that, it was a lot of sanding to clean up all the timber parts. When that was done, there were still a lot of stains on the timber so I used a mix of water and oxalic acid to wash the timber with and this cleared up all the stains. Now it was time to stain the timber to get close to the original colour of the chair and I used Cabotts walnut stain for that. You can see in the pictures what a difference this made. The next stage was to assemble the chair again, fill in the screw holes with oak plugs I made myself, sanding flat again and restain the entire chair again. The final stage was to lacquer the chair with Cabotts water based sating lacquer. You can see the end result in the pictures. Let me know what you think. P.s. the chair is for sale and no reasonable offer will be refused. 😇

I promised you the pictures of the Torii Gate when it was installed into the Japanese garden I helped build. All carpent...
02/04/2026

I promised you the pictures of the Torii Gate when it was installed into the Japanese garden I helped build. All carpentry you see here is made by me. There is still some work to do here and that will be started on soon. You will find out what that is when it is done, soon-ish.

My friend had some old speakers that required some love and tender care. I offered to repair them for him and he agreed....
06/02/2026

My friend had some old speakers that required some love and tender care. I offered to repair them for him and he agreed. You can see in the first picture, what both speakers looked like before I started. I had already started to clean up one so I can't show you the damage on both but you get the idea. You can also see some of the damage in the next two pictures. After that, you can see the different stages of the repair. First I had to remove the old glue from some cheap veneer that they had used in the past to try and fix them. Then I had to sand them back down, carefully as the original veneer was very thin as well. Next step was staining and lacquer, the lacquer I used was a "wipe-on" and this took 5 coats with some very fine sanding in between. The vinyl over the front was quite a big challenge as the lip was very small and since I could not get the front of the speaker off, I could not fold the vinyl around it but had to cut it in place. This was one heck of a headache as I had to do one of them 3 times before I finally got it right. I do think, in the end, that they came out quite well.

I was asked to add a railing to the deck I made above the koi pond in the Japansese garden. You can see the process here...
23/12/2025

I was asked to add a railing to the deck I made above the koi pond in the Japansese garden. You can see the process here, it is made from Tasmanian red oak. The frame is glued and held together with the use of dowels. Only two screws were used to hold the two slats in the small railing. I have also made the artwork above the roof on the deck, you can see it properly if you zoom in on the last picture. There is more work for me to do such as installing a miniature Torii Gate in the new year. It is already made but can't be installed just yet. I will show you the pictures about that next time.

This chair was handmade by me, it is the very first chair I have ever made and I have to say that I bit off a little bit...
22/11/2025

This chair was handmade by me, it is the very first chair I have ever made and I have to say that I bit off a little bit too much for a first attempt. Nevertheless, I finished it and besides a few minor mistakes that only professionals might notice, I think it turned out rather well.
The timbers used, you can see them in the pictures, were; Merbau for the two front legs, the handrails and the main backrest, Ironbark for the two hind legs, Mango (yes, you read that right) for the seat and blackbutt for the back slats. The mango had a bit of woodrot into it and I removed that and replaced it with black resin. I wanted it to stand out rather than trying to blend it in. All timbers came from recycled timbers, e.g. the mango was from a tree blown over by a storm in Queensland many years ago. The ironbark was from an old shed. The merbau was left over from a job and would otherwise have gone to the dump or burned in someone’s fireplace, it was the same for the blackbutt. As you can see in the pictures, I had to shape, sand, plane, grind etc to get the chair into its final form. I have taken a picture of this chair from the internet because I very much like it’s design. By the time it was ready for assembly, I came across a big problem. Using normal dowels to put the chair together without using screws or nails was not strong enough. I had tried to do this with the two front legs but they were, even after gluing it together, not very stable. I had to try and find something stronger and still not use screws or nails. I came across a tool that I had seen on the internet that seemed a lot stronger than dowels. It was from Festool and it used manufactured “domino’s”. Very similar to real dominos but with rounded edges. (look it up on YouTube, that will explain it) I made some for myself (see pictures) and although not as big as the real ones, it really made the difference I needed to strengthen the chair. I did not buy the tool as this was over 2K. (Yes, I pulled the already glued-on legs of the seat and repaired them, ready to be used again). The only place where I had to use screws instead of dowels or dominos was with the backrest. After the hind legs were assembled, there was not enough flexibility to install the back slats and the rest with the dowels in place. You cannot see the screws as they have been plugged up. After sanding and before coating, the chair was stained with Cabotts walnut stain. The chair was coated with Feast Watson “wipe on poly” gloss clear lacquer. It took 5 coats to get to the finish I wanted without having any brushstrokes or drip runs. I hope you liked the story about how I put the chair together.

I was asked by my daughter if I could repair this stool for a friend of hers. She had already told her friend when she h...
07/11/2025

I was asked by my daughter if I could repair this stool for a friend of hers. She had already told her friend when she had showed her the damage to the stool, "oh, my dad can fix this". Yes, I can fix it, either I glue it together or I make a new leg. Here are the pictures of the damage and the repair.

I was asked to repair this garden set but as you can see in the pictures, the legs were totally rotten and beyond saving...
21/10/2025

I was asked to repair this garden set but as you can see in the pictures, the legs were totally rotten and beyond saving. I made new legs for the benches from beams of tallowood and ironbark. I had to scrape all the blistered lacquer of the seats, back rest and table as sanding kept clogging up the sandpaper. A coat of decking oil with a charcoal stain covered any inperfections that in the end added to the charm and character. New legs were made from grey gum and treated the same way. One of the seats had a few holes from woodrot in them. I cleaned them out and filled it with some resin with reddish glitter mixed into it. You can see the final outcome in the pictures, it is beautiful and heavy. This will last you a lifetime. I am happy to say I did all of this at the Bargo Men's Shed and I am letting you know that this is for sale. All proceeds go to the Bargo Men Shed.

09/10/2025

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I came across this slab while cleaning out my timber storage. This slab started to get dry-rot and it was now warped eno...
05/09/2025

I came across this slab while cleaning out my timber storage. This slab started to get dry-rot and it was now warped enough that I could not machine it to straighen it. So I found a solution to it as it could not be used for a coffee table etc hence it is now a "bar" top.\
After machining all the woodrot away, sanding it, it came up rather nice. I did leave some of the sawmarks there to give it some character. After oiling it 4 times, it is now in place making use of our wine barrel at the same time. Cheers.

Another happy customer. The timber is grey gum and it was cut and planed to size. The floating shelf will have tiles abo...
22/08/2025

Another happy customer. The timber is grey gum and it was cut and planed to size. The floating shelf will have tiles above it as well. The other board is like a feed-through into the living room.

Address

Bargo, NSW

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 5pm
Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm
Saturday 9am - 1pm

Telephone

+61432371765

Website

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