What is Wabi Works?

I have always had a love for driving things, especially offroad. Starting with riding motorcycles at age 7. By the age of 8 years old I was sitting on a stack of books in the drivers seat, teaching myself how to maneuver the family suburban around our field. A fixer and tinkerer by nature, I’ve always had a knack for taking things apart and finding a way to modify and improve them.

Skip to 2016 when I purchased my first 4wd, the very Toyota 4runner you see here. Immediately it was put to use as my daily driven adventure mobile. From mountains to sea, it carried me and me and my gear anywhere I needed to go to have some fun.

Combined with a growing interest in carpentry and woodworking I began to experiment with building my storage system. The first version proved to enhance my experience greatly. Eventually it was chopped up, modified, and improved. Version 1.5 had some new dimensions, a few new features but was still rather primitive in its construction and appearance. Countless camping trips were made on a version 2.0 and much was improved for version 3.0 as my desire to for bigger adventures grew. By this point my woodworking skills had been expanding as I was being mentored by a master finish carpenter doing residential work in and around Bellingham Washington.

My passion for vehicles started to dance alongside my growing abilities as a craftsman and I landed a position on a crew building high end camper van conversions. Building Vans was fun, and a lot was learned. Eventually, I felt a calling to diversify my efforts and pursue creative freedom through working on other vehicle platforms and improving my own designs and methods. Driven by a deep passion for the process of designing and building things from scratch, especially things that enable exploration. Guided by a natural ability to make sense of weird shapes, and a high attention to detail contribute to my success in the everlasting pursuit of functional fitment. I am Wabi Works

Wabi Works recognizes that a vehicle is a tool that can open your world to amazing people, places and adventures. Our mission at Wabi Works is to help eliminate the barriers that keep people from going out and exploring. Despite what you see all over Instagram, you don’t actually need a fancy van with a six figure price tag to go have an epic adventure outdoors.

Wabi Works stems from the ancient Japanese philosophy of “wabi sabi” which recognizes the beauty in the imperfections of life. Wabi Works embodies this concept at its core. This journey of blazing our own trail in such a goliath industry has been humbling, messy, and beautiful in every way.

We choose to build out of wood because wood has a unique way of telling stories through the knicks scratches and scuffs that it acquires from real life use. Wood is from nature and our creations are built to work in harmony with your environment. To compliment the view, not distract you from it. We aim to build quality connections with anyone who chooses to work with us. We strive strengthen the bond between the adventure vehicle community by encouraging others to get out and go explore no matter what you drive.