Welcome to BubbaDog Woodworks! Thank you for stopping by—we are so excited to introduce ourselves and tell you more about how our business was born.

Our names are Gregg and Emma—we’re married partners living and soaking up all that Sacramento, California has to offer! We’re accompanied on all our adventures by our black and brown lab pups, Tux and Duke. When we’re not building things with our hands, we’re big outdoor enthusiasts and especially love cycling, hiking, snowboarding/skiing, paddleboarding, and exploring with our dogs.

To explain the BubbaDog Woodworks story, we have to take you back to the first spark of passion for woodworking. In 2019, Gregg (with the help of Tux) had just purchased our first home—which, we should mention, was built in the 1920s and moved to its current location back when houses were brought out west on railcars. As a civil engineer and all-around crafty dude, there were more than a few projects Gregg dreamt up to transform the house into a home. And so, for several years Gregg and Tux (along with roommate and best friend, Eric) amassed tools and started chipping away at each project. When Gregg met the love of his life, Emma, in late 2020, those initial dreams grew even bigger as the house filled up. Emma moved into the house in 2021 and added her own vision and creativity to each renovation.

Our first foray into woodworking came out of a desperate need for more storage space (which is tough to come by in a one-hundred-year-old house!). A long room right off our kitchen and living room, which used to be a covered porch that the previous family closed into the house, became reno-fodder. We split the space down the middle, threw up a wall, and started planning for our new walk-in pantry and mudroom. Seeing the space we’d created, Gregg felt a new itch to build the pantry from scratch. He convinced Emma that we could build the cabinets ourselves, promising “if they suck, we’ll throw them out and hire a professional.” Little did we know this would be our first step toward become competent with plywood. With a lot of geometry, sketches, and shims (and I mean, a LOT of shims), our cabinets and shelves turned out even better than Emma’s Pinterest boards. We were hooked and knew the pantry was the start of a new hobby and passion—along with a new reason for imposter syndrome. I mean, how many projects does it take before you can call yourself a woodworker? We jumped right in.

After the pantry project came built-in cabinets tucked next to the fireplace, a custom mantle, and a fully stocked mudroom build-out that includes bench seating, a massive shoe rack, and a coat closet (remember how I said we needed more storage space?). So how did we transition from custom built remodeling projects to cutting boards? So glad you asked.

A sick new pantry combined with a love for cooking makes for a lot of great meals coming out of the kitchen. As Emma was making dinner one night, Gregg watched the cutting board she was using wobble and shift under her knife, as the thin composite wood had warped and bowed. And for the second time he wondered out loud, “what if I tried to make you a nicer cutting board?” With absolutely no idea what he was doing, Gregg threw himself into researching a different type of woodworking that required new tools and hardwood we’d never handled before. Our first prototype is a maple and walnut face grain board that we still use almost every night. We’ve certainly improved on that first design and learned a lot along the way, but that board sparked a new love that would become BubbaDog Woodworks.  

We are equal production partners, and to say we have fun while building these boards is an understatement. Our favorite part of creating a business is getting to work together in our little garage-woodshop that we’ve built together and love so dearly. BubbaDog Woodworks is fueled by our love for this craft and the need we see around us for functional, quality hardwood cutting boards that you can display proudly and use confidently. In our house, memories are made in the kitchen around an island where we talk, prepare, and share food with the people we love. We recognize that investing in our boards means getting to shape your memories in a small way, and we’re honored to have that opportunity.

We so appreciate you supporting our passion through this humbly small business. Thank you all for embarking on this ride with us. We are excited to meet you, and we hope to add an item (or two) to your home!

xoxo,
Gregg, Emma, Tux, and Duke