About Mo Builds

About Mo

I grew up moving fast. Left home at 13, figured the rest out as I went.

I spent time in construction — framing homes, building shops, working with my hands in Alberta blizzards and prairie winds that would send most people inside. I loved it. The weight of it. The realness of it. You build something with your hands and it stands there. It doesn't lie to you.

Then life got loud in all the wrong ways. A toxic job. A breaking marriage. A commute that was slowly hollowing me out. And then, after COVID, a neurological illness that took my motor function and my speech. I had to relearn things most people never think about.

I came out the other side. Barely, and then completely.

About two years ago I went into the silence on purpose — 72 hours. No phone. No music. No screens. No food. Just me and whatever was left when you strip everything away.

I came out of it and started building cutting boards.

That probably sounds small. It wasn't.

I live in a 12x24 cabin I built myself on my family's land in rural Alberta. I have a daughter who makes everything worth it. I have a woman who gave me my spark back. I have two hands, a small shop, and an obsessive need to make things that last.

Every board that leaves this shop is built by one person. Sanded by one person. Finished and burned and packed by one person. There's no team. There's no factory. There's just me, the wood, and the belief that the things we use every day deserve to be made with care.

There are a lot of cutting boards in the world.

But this one — this one's yours.

— Mo

Alberta, Canada