Baskewonquirkypenguin was founded in Manchester in 2023 after our instructors grew tired of two unhelpful extremes in home interiors: on one side, luxury design magazines equating personal style with £1,200 imported side tables; on the other, viral 30-second craft videos showing hot-glue contraptions that fall apart within a fortnight.
Following the lineage of the London Museum of the Home’s domestic history archives, the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Make Good: Rethinking Material Futures initiative, and the right-to-repair movement championed by The Restart Project, we believe the most sustainable material is the one already sitting in your kitchen cupboard or hallway.
Every tutorial published on baskewonquirkypenguin.courses undergoes a three-month domestic wear test before we write a single step. We leave mineral-coated jars on sunny windowsills, scrub milk-painted stools with damp cloths, and test adhesive joints under real household weight.
Trained in theatrical prop finishing and architectural restoration, Clara develops our zero-VOC mineral slurry, gesso, and casein milk-paint formulations for glass, metal, and ceramic containers.
A former community wood-recycling workshop coordinator, Miles leads our furniture triage modules, teaching beginners how to stabilise wobbly frames, re-web stools, and re-face tired cabinets.