Meet Layla Saleeby | Woodworker & Furniture Maker

We had the good fortune of connecting with Layla Saleeby and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Layla, what led you to pursuing a creative path professionally?
Having creative outlets that challenge me, push me to learn, and allow me to experiment is central in my life, and woodworking happened to be a perfect fit. There’s lots of other crafts I could’ve gotten into (for a short time, I was into jewelry and metalworking), but I think that the mix of art and practicality is what made woodworking really click with me. Much of my house’s furniture, and even some of my tools, come out of my shop, so if I need something new—say, a cabinet for my bottle collection—I can design it to my own specifications and add any creative embellishments I want: decorative joinery, figured woods, etc. It’s one of the reasons I enjoy making pieces for other people, especially custom ones. When someone takes home a cutting board, I make sure that besides it being a practical addition to their kitchen, it’ll be a part of the aesthetic of their home.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I feel very lucky that Nightjar as a business/project is an extension of my passion. Woodworking is a huge creative outlet for me—it’s on my mind every day—so knowing that my customers enjoy my pieces and use them daily is really rewarding, especially when I look back on how far I’ve come since the early days when my shop was just a workbench and a set of cheap chisels. I try to be transparent with people when it comes to getting started in woodworking. It takes time to build up your shop and figure out what you actually need, and it’s difficult not to compare yourself to the pros with expensive tools and exotic woods. Social media especially makes it very easy to let those insecurities take over. However, I try to keep in mind that art and perfection aren’t the same thing, and that at the end of the day, I go into the studio because I genuinely love what I do.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I have to shout out Custom Woodcrafter in Summerville since they’re where I and many others in the local woodworking community source our lumber, but Charleston and the surrounding areas have loads of other fun places to visit, especially within the food scene. I always recommend folks check out the barbecue around here for some Carolina style southern cooking, especially Martin’s Bar-B-Que Joint and Melvin’s BBQ, but a meal’s a good excuse to visit one of the many local breweries across the city too. Edmund’s Oast is my personal favorite.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Woodworking as a craft can be kind of intimidating given all the different fields out there, the specialized tools one person or another swears by, and that constant fixation on perfection we see online, so I’ve always admired the way that furniture maker and content creator Rex Krueger makes woodworking accessible. He’s a hand tool craftsman who specializes in historical woodworking, and because he’s focused on making the hobby affordable to beginners, his channel gave me the confidence to really get started. I learned that I could make great projects using simple, cheap tools. I learned that there was a whole community built around vintage tools and the beauty of historical artisanship. Rex really sparked my interest in everything that makes me love woodworking, and I don’t think I’d have gotten into this craft if I didn’t find his channel.

Instagram: nightjarwoodworking

Other: Email: nightjarwoodworking@gmail.com