Session: Advanced Design/Build, Construction + Community, and Carpentry + Wood, Winter 2026
Builders:  21 high school students, 13 middle school students
Materials: dimensional lumber douglas fir, plywood, 2×4 redwood lumber, 4×4 redwood posts, baseboards, wooden dowels, art canvases,  scrap redwood pieces
Tools: drill, impact driver, chop saw, jigsaw, bandsaw, speed square, measuring tape, sandpaper, oil pastels, exterior paint, paintbrushes, pencil, paint pens, tempera paint markers

On an unusually warm Sunday in February (Super Bowl Sunday in fact!), actor, humorist, and woodworker Nick Offerman and the incredibly talented local woodworker Lee Buchanan visited the Girls Garage shop! In between stops on their Little Woodchucks: Offerman Woodshop’s Guide to Tools and Tomfoolery book tour, we welcomed Nick and Lee for a meet-and-greet with our students and a special fireside chat for the Girls Garage community.

Weeks before the event, all of our building programs began working in parallel on an all-wooden stage for this special evening. Students had just returned from the hum of the holidays, and without missing a beat, these young builders picked up their hammers, drills, and drivers, ready to build.

Our Advanced Design/Build cohort, fresh from celebrating a home renovation ribbon-cutting, jumped straight into fabricating the decorative elements of the set: a large monstera potted plant, a fireplace mantel with a roaring fire, and a beautiful end table.

Students in Construction + Community centered their work around one question: What does it look like to build something that holds someone? Their answer took shape in three beautifully crafted wooden chairs that required careful attention to proportion, strength, and comfort.

In Carpentry + Wood, our beginner builders focused on storytelling through visual detail. They created custom frames and hand-painted artwork featuring tools found in the shop. Measuring, cutting, joining, and finishing each frame by hand, they transformed everyday shop objects into art.

In total, 36 students contributed to the set. What emerged was a fully realized wooden living room imagined, designed, and built entirely by young makers. At the meet-and-greet, students described every part of their building process to Nick and Lee, who listened with care and spoke to our students as peers. The pride in our students’ voices and the confidence in their craftsmanship brought Nick to tears, who said, “I have never been in the presence of so many young woodworkers before.” Read more about the event here!

Photos by Miya Hirabayashi