Gainesville resident Kristina Rall isn’t afraid to play with power tools. In fact, learning how to use new tools such as (insert big loud tool name here) has become one of her favorite pastimes, next to watching her 10-year-old son swim.
Kristina is a full-time mom, full-time senior survey researcher for a policy research firm, and nighttime builder of custom wood creations for her company, Kapers Woodworks.
Like many, Kristina discovered a new hobby when the pandemic hit.
When her husband Christopher, a local PWCS teacher, needed to teach remotely, and her then second-grade son, Preston, had to attend school virtually, the Rall’s needed to upgrade their desk situation. So, Kristina took the knowledge she gained building a pantry earlier that year and made two desks. She enjoyed the process and started watching female woodworkers on YouTube to learn the basics.
As her knowledge about types of wood and tools grew, Kristina began shopping on Facebook Marketplace for used tools and wood and making custom charcuterie boards. She also joined a local makerspace called Makersmiths. The makerspace is volunteer run by members who teach classes and boasts a metal shop and large expensive equipment like router tables, belt sanders, and laser equipment, that most home woodcrafters don’t own.
Kristina dove headfirst into the learning process and spent many nights at the makerspace after her son went to bed. She took classes, became certified in using much of the equipment, and began planning new items to make.
“I’m adamant about doing everything from scratch and buying local,” Kristina said. “I get local wood that was just milled from a tree and dried, pull the bark off, mill it, cut it and use templates I create on the laser printer. I want everything I make to be truly handcrafted.”
Her career in education research has helped her hobby. She didn’t want to merely learn how to use each tool, she wanted to learn the inner workings of them, to truly understand how to optimize each—even how to fix the belts and knives on some.
From there she began experimenting. Her charcuterie boards became more detailed; some had cutouts and colored epoxy; all are custom and one-of-a-kind.
Learning this much and creating custom wood pieces sounds like a full-time job. But Kristina has a rigorous full-time job and an active son who swims five nights a week and competes on many weekends. So, Kristina is creative about working around her family's busy evening and weekend schedule and will work into the wee hours of the morning if necessary. But as she’s built her collection of tools at home, and when the weather allows, she works in the garage and appreciates her neighbors who don’t mind hearing the sanding or cutting.
Just as her assortment of tools has grown, so have her custom creations.
Kristina has made cutting boards, charcuterie boards, signs, and trays with custom shapes and colored epoxy inlays, and recently started making whiskey flights for the Old Towne Whiskey Club in Manassas. She even learned how to etch each glass.
Luckily, she has a great sense of humor for the many instances when people on Facebook Marketplace or other online shops think she’s buying tools for her husband, or when someone tries to “help” her use a tool. This woman isn’t afraid to stand her ground and show her expertise and talent. In fact, she will soon be teaching classes at Makersmiths.
“I like the process of building as much as I enjoy the product itself. I like to work on the details and learn different skills.” Kristina said. “Part of my day job is problem-solving—if something goes wrong, I need to figure it out. Am I going to waste hundreds of dollars of wood, or am I going to fix it?”
Spoiler alert: she rarely wastes anything and typically pivots her design or uses the wood for another purpose.
In two short years, Kristina has taken a hobby and turned it into a growing business. And she encourages anyone who has a hobby and wants to spend more time on it to lean on the many resources available. She’s been part of an entrepreneurial group on social media that has helped her learn how to run a business and grow it. And from this group, she’s received nine orders, one of which is on its way to Argentina!
What’s next for Kapers Woodworking? In addition to teaching classes on how to create a charcuterie board, Kristina continues to take custom orders and learn how to make new pieces.
“If someone were to ask me where I want this to go, I would want a small shop, where I can teach women and girls and demystify and take the fear out of using power tools,” Kristina said.
For more information about Kapers Woodworks, visit: kaperswoodworks.com or @kaperswoodworks on Facebook and Instagram.
Where did the name “Kapers” come from?
“It is a nickname I got while waiting tables,” Kristina said. “My maiden name is Paul and at that point, most people called me KP. But there was one girl who blurted out ‘Kapers’ one day when she tried to get my attention, and it stuck with me as a special name. When I was trying to come up with a company name, my sister suggested Kapers Woodworks.”
This feature appears in the May 2022 issue of Haymarket-Gainesville Lifestyle Magazine
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