Bring This Carpenter a Challenge, He’ll Craft You a Solution – Charlotte Magazine

If Preston Craft is ever mid-project and says, “I have a wild idea,” just say yes. Chances are he’s come up with a genius storage solution or solved a design problem you hadn’t even considered. A custom drawer to hide your bulky paper shredder? A hidden dock for your adapter? An appliance tower in your pantry? Hard yes to all of the above.

Most days, he’s up before 5 a.m., tinkering in his Fort Mill shop. Craft builds all of his cabinetry there before he installs it, and he’s got three or four different projects in the works at any given time. But occasionally, he’ll get inspired to tackle a project in his own home. “The other night, I got a wild idea,” he says. “Our outdoor stone fireplace was too dingy, so I got the sprayer out and painted it and added a white oak mantel.” 

The Richmond, Virginia, native began his career in operations management and owned several businesses including a recruiting firm and a golf simulator service. He was even part owner of a dog bone manufacturing company before he started his own carpentry business three years ago. “I went full-time self-employed in 2021, but I’ve been doing it since 2019,” he says. “Friends and family would say, ‘Can you build me this?’ It started with people knowing I was handy, and it would turn into a bigger project. Then I had to decide what I was doing because this was too busy to be a side hustle.”

He launched P.S. Carpentry with his wife, Staci (P and S are their initials), and they had 14 jobs in their first year. Today, they’re booking jobs three to five months out, and projects range from a pocket door install to full-scale kitchen remodels. “A lot of people see P.S. Carpentry as ‘Preston’ because I’m customer-facing,” he says, “but most of the business is run by Staci. We’ve never spent a dollar on advertising.”

It tracks that he was a high-energy kid who got bored in his high school woodshop class. When the rest of the students were building a stool, Craft built a coffee table. After that, he told his teacher he wanted to build a poster bed. “So I bought the mahogany and built a four-poster bed that’s currently in my house,” Craft says. “I developed a love for creating and designing and making things come together.”

Spouses and business partners Staci and Preston Craft.

Since launching his business at the height of COVID, Craft says most of his projects involve space-saving solutions for homeowners to accommodate their needs and rituals. He’s seen a spike in Murphy beds, built-in shelving, and benches to hold toys. “With custom comes creativity,” he says. “If you pay $4,000 for banquette seating, you’re upgrading your home, but you’re also eliminating the need for four new dining chairs.”

The trick to making it all look seamless, he says, is keeping his millwork consistent with the home’s architectural details. “When people ask me about finishes, the first thing we do is look around the home. If you have a lot of detailed trim work in the rest of the house, we’ll avoid the craftsman category. These are the things that make new blend well with old.”

A client recently hired him to build a custom piece on her back porch that would create privacy, hold a TV, and incorporate her love of flowers. “We call it ‘The Flowerplace,’” Craft says. “We created the herringbone flowerplace, which is built into the existing porch like it was meant to be there all along.”

At 35, Craft has the stamina—and imagination—of a grade schooler. “I’m a kid in a man’s body,” he says with a laugh. “I want to build a treehouse that has electrical and TVs and a pool table, like a man cave in a treehouse.” Just don’t expect him to kick back and relax in it. “I despise sitting still,” he says. “A new thing comes along, and I’m all in.”