John Ritchie

John and his wife, Ann, moved to Beaufort in 2018 after growing up, marrying, and raising a family in the far west suburbs of Chicago. John spent his career designing bridges throughout the Midwest and Florida. He retired in 2020 and devoted himself full time to woodworking. He opened The Frog Workshop from his home in Beaufort and began designing and building custom furniture, cutting boards, trays, and decorative objects.

He has been a woodworker and a maker his entire life, building and repairing furniture around the house, making tools and toys, and even a few knives as a teenager. He grew up working on farms where there was always something to build or needing repair. Like many hobbyist woodworkers, his summer weekends were spent in the garage building furniture and other wooden objects. As he approached retirement, he looked forward to woodworking as a full-time pursuit and started collecting the necessary tools and designing the workshop. They built a house in Beaufort with a designated shop space above the garage (the FROG), where he now spends most days creating with wood.

His eclectic style for kitchen boards includes rustic charcuterie boards with live edges and hand carved details, as well as refined serving trays in a more mid-century modern style. He finds enjoyment in experimenting with colors, textures, and grain patterns in all types of kitchen and serving boards. While the bulk of his work is edge grain cutting boards of all sizes, he finds serving trays and end grain boards to have the most opportunity for creativity. His works range from large butcher block style boards to more conventional boards that will please anyone from casual cooks to professional chefs.