In this episode of Focus On, we sit down with Andrea Ferrari, the Italian-born craftsman and founder of FAF Woodwork & Design, a high-end custom joinery studio that has quietly become one of Marrickville's most respected creative businesses.
Andrea's story begins in Firenzuola, a small town in Italy's Emilia-Romagna region. It was his father who first pointed him toward woodwork, spotting a nearby joinery company looking for an apprentice and encouraging him apply. "I met with the owner and started working on wood the next day, that's how it began," Andrea says. He spent the next eleven years with that same company, eventually becoming a shareholder, but the pull toward something of his own grew too strong to ignore. In 2015, he made the move to Australia with a plan as clear as it was modest: spend a year, learn English, go back home, open a business.
Then, he met his wife.
"Instead, I fell in love with an Australian. We started a family, had two kids, and I started FAF. Australia became home." Italy, he says, is now more like a holiday destination, somewhere to visit parents and old friends. His life is here, in Marrickville, doing the work he has always loved.
That love for wood runs deeper than any apprenticeship. As a kid growing up in a small Italian town, Andrea and his friends would spend whole days collecting timber from the bush, building little shelters and cubbies from whatever they could find. "I think that's where it started," he says. "Woodwork gives you satisfaction because you can see something go from the beginning all the way to the finished product. You create something tangible with your hands, and that feeling has always excited me."
Today, FAF channels that same feeling into some of Sydney's most demanding residential projects. Specialising in high-end custom joinery, full kitchen fit-outs, wardrobes, cabinetry, panelling, vanities, built-in furniture, the studio works closely with leading architects and builders to transform empty spaces into something beautiful and functional. Every piece is fully pre-assembled in the Marrickville factory before it ever touches a site, giving the team complete control over quality at every stage.
One recent project captures the studio's ambition perfectly: a penthouse in Darlinghurst, small in footprint but enormous in complexity. More than twenty materials. Continuous curved joinery wrapping from the kitchen through the staircase and across multiple spaces. Integrated doors sitting perfectly flush with wall panelling. Solid timber balustrades. "Even physically transporting the pieces into the apartment was difficult because the lift was small," Andrea recalls. "In the end, we overcame the challenges and as a result the work looked like jewellery."
That pursuit of precision is the philosophy Andrea has built everything around. "This profession taught me that small details make the difference," he says. A client might walk into a finished space and immediately say it looks beautiful, then they get closer, and that's the moment. The finishes, the transitions, the craftsmanship that reveals itself inch by inch. "Life is similar," he says quietly. "Small things matter."
The same thinking shapes how he builds his team. When Andrea hires, skill is not the first thing he looks for. "Character matters more," he says. "You can teach skills. What matters most is finding kind, respectful people who care about the team and want to grow with the business." It's why he describes FAF not as a company but as a family, one built around shared lunches, weekend pizza and pasta classes, and a culture where even he, with twenty years of experience, keeps learning from the people around him.
"When you grow," he says, "you bring other people with you. It's the only way because you all grow together."
Focus On is our tribute to the creative forces driving the Inner-city's cultural evolution. Are you a local artist, designer, entrepreneur, or creative business making your mark? Let's tell your story.