McLaughlin Woodworks

08/03/2026

I was heading for the career in a newsroom. I’d gone to journalism school, interned at newspapers, and had a strong portfolio of photojournalist work.

Somehow I ended up in a woodshop.

I’ve been running McLaughlin Woodworks for six years and am only just now starting to understand what my business stands for. (Spoilers: I had to stop chasing project volume and make every job earn its keep on the shop floor.)

This is the first post on “Heartwood:” the McLaughlin Woodworks shop journal. I’ll be writing about the behind-the-scenes work that goes into designing and building one-of-a-kind pieces of furniture for my clients, as well as acting as a guide for people who are trying to learn more about the custom process.

Patch McLaughlin was going to be a journalist. Now he builds custom furniture in Baltimore — and this is where Heartwood, his new journal, begins.

07/23/2026

Got featured in voyagebaltimore. Check out the link in the bio.

Enough said.

07/05/2026

At MW a lot of time and effort, in and out of the shop, goes into what I call “the bespoke standard.” Furniture that isn’t just built to look good, but designed, with the client, to solve a real problem, and made specifically for their real world needs.

A family came to us because they needed a bed that could accommodate a specific medical need. Safety needed to be baked into the design, it needed to be built to last decades — not get outgrown and replaced in a few years — and maintain the look and feel of an heirloom-grade piece of furniture.

This white oak Queen bed was built with a modular safety rail system that is designed to scale back over time as the client’s needs changed. I worked with the client through a design process that started with hand drawn sketches and back and forth conversations, and ended with a finished piece that actually met their needs without sacrificing quality or style.

03/31/2026

Built for a concert pianist in Bethesda, Maryland. Hard maple, ebonized exterior. Five dovetailed drawers with cloud-lift sides so sheet music slides out with ease.

Every dimension was designed before a single board was cut. There wasn’t a spare centimeter of unused space inside that cabinet.

That’s what designing first looks like.

03/26/2026

Every piece starts with a conversation and a sketch. This is Kyra’s café table — black walnut, knock-down trestle base, through-tenon joinery. Designed from the ground up for her space. This is how we work.

01/22/2025

Meet Gus, the newest member of the McLaughlin Woodworks crew. Gus is an American Foxhound I adopted in mid-October after he was rescued from the flooding in Asheville caused by Hurricane Helena.

His brother, Henry, was adopted by my brother, and the two still love to wrestle every chance they get. Gus has already settled into shop life—he gets along great with Walter, the other shop dog, and has made himself right at home.

That said, he’s already earned a bit of a reputation for sneaking off with tools or pieces of lumber when my back is turned. He keeps me on our toes.

01/08/2024

The American Chestnut, in my opinion, is one of the most beautiful woods to work with. But the lumber is difficult to find other than reclaimed lumber from old barns. The species was decimated by the chestnut blight. I was once told that the common saying about chestnuts was “a squirrel could travel from Main to Georgia, and only touching chestnuts would never touch the ground.” According to the article it could take centuries to restore them to the American forests.

Lumber, shelter, delicious nuts—there was nothing the American chestnut couldn’t provide.

12/25/2023

Months after the Linden Oak was cut down, chain-saw carver Colin Vale memorialized Montgomery County’s ancient white oak tree with a bench.

12/08/2023

Trees are so cool!

“…soon after the flames were gone, California’s coast redwoods began calling upon a remarkable energy storage system helping these trees survive even after fires burned away every life-sustaining green needle.”

Raging wildfires in 2020 transformed Big Basin Redwoods State Park in Santa Cruz County from a towering forested cathedral into a standing boneyard with some of the oldest trees on the planet seemingly burned beyond survival.