The Studio
Dunstone Design's studio and showroom is situated at Unit 2/5 Aurora Pl, Queanbeyan, NSW.

The Showroom is attended 1pm to 5pm every Sunday. Tuesday to Friday from 8am to 5pm.

Dunstone Design occupies two adjacent units in a Queanbeyan industrial park. The workshop is a well equipped space with modern machinery and a wide selection of hand tools, while the showroom shares its space with the oiling room and the timber storage. We hold many examples of our work but have only a limited selection of "ready to buy" stock. As we generally "make to order", Waterfall stools and hall tables are about the only designs we have stock of. We currently have a four month turn around for work, although this varies considerably depending on the size and complexity of the piece you have ordered. Unlike many studio furniture makers, Dunstone Design has the infrastructure to handle projects of all sizes with ease, on time.

Dunstone Design specializes in original contemporary chairs. No other form of furniture places such demands on the designer or the craftsman, nor gives such everyday familiar pleasure to the owner. A chair is a cradle for the body, an offering to a friend to be at ease. At a time when most furniture makers are avoiding chairs, Dunstone Design is excelling at them.

Commissions
Commissioned fine furniture is what Dunstone Design does best. The challenge of designing to the specific brief of a client has inspired Evan and the team to some of their best work. A large portion of Dunstone Design's work, both domestic and commercial, is to commission.

Australians do not have a tradition of commissioning fine furniture. Those clients with the courage and faith to commission complex work are rewarded with original pieces that invariably out shine standard products.

Evan Dunstone
Evan Dunstone is the driving force behind Dunstone Design. Evan was trained and mentored by David MacLaren of the World renowned Bungendore Wood Works Gallery. Evan created Dunstone Design in 1998 after David's workshop tragically burned down. For four and a half years Dunstone Design operated out of the excellent workshop of Uneke Furniture in Bungendore before setting up our own studio and showroom in Queanbeyan in October 2003.

Working wood and designing furniture is a holistic pursuit, much like playing music. There are techniques and rules, but the passion and feeling comes from within. These days, Evan sees himself increasingly as the conductor of the orchestra rather than the soloist. He hires talented makers who bring different skills to the team.

Churchill Fellowship
Evan's dedication to the craft was rewarded in 2001 with a Churchill Fellowship to study contemporary chair design and manufacture abroad. For ten weeks he traveled England and the USA visiting other Studio Furniture Makers, galleries, and museums, schools of fine woodworking and even the Royal Workshops, London . He was exposed to some of the finest work in the world at a time when his own voice as a designer was just starting to mature.

Visiting Artist
Evan lectures annually as a Visiting Artist at the Australian School of Fine Furniture, University of Tasmania , Launceston. In April/May of 2007 he taught the chair design course to the second year students. The Tamar chair, one of Evan's favorite chair designs, was started while teaching this course.

Evan has also been a visiting artist at the Wood Workshop, NITA, Canberra School of Art, ANU. Dr Rodney Hayward , Head of the Wood Workshop, has been a great influence and mentor to Evan and affected his attitudes to the craft.

The Team

Jamie Latham
Jamie started his apprenticeship with "Provencal" of Bowral, making reproduction French provincial furniture. He transferred to Dunstone Design in mid 2005 in his second year of apprenticeship. Jamie is very dedicated to the craft and spends many of his Sundays in the work shop tuning his own tools, making his own pieces and practicing techniques. Jamie is a keen squash player and ranked in the top 15 in the ACT.

Jamie is specializing in cabinets and his 3 rd year project at TAFE was awarded the prize for “Excellence in Design”. He has a keen eye for reading timber and his cabinets are always well composed for grain and figure. A real “woodie”, Jamie has a great love of natural timber.

 Alex MacFarlane
Alex joined the team in March of 2006. He had previously spent a year with a kitchen maker in his home town of Bathurst . He is a young bloke with a big passion for the craft, having stopped at nothing to get himself into a work shop that worked “real” wood. Alex has trained in house rather than gone to TAFE, as Dunstone Design is trying to hone the training to suit our work shop .