01
Custom furniture
Tables, benches, beds, desks. You bring the room and the rough idea; the shop brings the proportions, the wood and the joinery that holds it together for fifty years.
Joelton · Tennessee
Wood, worked by hand.
A one-man shop north of Nashville. Steve Olesky builds furniture, built-ins and hard-to-find repairs the slow way — measured twice, cut once, finished until it feels right under your palm.
The shop
Small shop. Long memory.
Everything leaves here finished by the same pair of hands.
There is no production line in Joelton. One bench, a wall of tools that have earned their place, and a stack of lumber that has been drying longer than most shops have been open. If a thing is worth building, it is worth building once.
- 0Years in the shop, est. 2008
- 0Craftsman, start to finish
- 0Solid hardwood, no veneer core
Selected work
Pieces that get used, not admired.
Dining tables that take a beating. Shelves that fit the wall you actually have. A chair leg glued back the way the maker would have done it.
What comes out of the shop
Four things, done properly.
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Built-ins & carpentry
Bookcases, mudroom lockers, pantry shelving, mantels. Scribed to the wall you have, not the wall the catalog assumed.
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Repair & restoration
Loose chairs, split tops, broken spindles, cloudy old finishes. Old furniture is usually worth saving — and cheaper to save than to replace.
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Turning & one-offs
Bowls, spindles, handles and replacement parts turned to match. If you can hand it over or draw it on a napkin, bring it by.
One shop, one craftsman, since 2008
About
Steve Olesky
Steve has been making sawdust for the better part of his life, and running this shop in Joelton for a good stretch of it. No showroom, no sales team — just a phone number, a bench, and a habit of saying no to work he cannot do right.
Most jobs start the same way: a phone call, a couple of photographs, and a conversation about what the piece actually has to survive. Kids, dogs, hot pans, forty Thanksgivings. The design follows from that, and so does the wood.
He works mostly in domestic hardwoods — walnut, white oak, cherry, hard maple — bought local where he can get it, dried properly, and cut to show the grain rather than hide it. Finishes lean toward oil and wax, because a piece that can be repaired is a piece that lasts.
— Steve
Part of the Fine Woodworking community
How a job goes
Four steps, no surprises.
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01
You call
Tell him what it is, where it goes and roughly when you need it. Photos and one tape-measure reading get you a long way in a single phone call.
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02
Drawing & price
A sketch, a wood choice and a flat number. No hourly creep, nothing “while we were in there” added at the end.
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03
Built in Joelton
Milled, joined, fitted and finished at one bench. You are welcome to stop in mid-build and see it with the clamps still on.
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04
Delivered & set
Brought out, carried in, levelled and checked. Anything that moves in the first season gets put right — that part is not extra.
“Measure the room, not the catalog. Then build the thing once.”
Steve Olesky
Get in touch
The shop picks up the phone.
The easiest way to start anything is a call, or a text with a photo attached. Visits are welcome — just ring ahead so the machines are off.
Where
Joelton, Tennessee 37080
Davidson County, 20 minutes north of Nashville
When
Monday – Friday, 8am – 5pm
Saturday by appointment · Sunday closed
Serving
Joelton, Whites Creek, Springfield, Goodlettsville, Ashland City and greater Nashville
Good to know
Estimates are free. Lead time runs a few weeks — hardwood does not hurry.