Kirti Nagar Timber Market · New Delhi
Woodmaa is a family wood house from Delhi. We choose the timber, find the right hands, and bring you furniture and objects made by India’s traditional carpenters. Shaped by hand, not by machine.
Our story
It starts with one man, a few stacks of planks, and a timber market on the western side of Delhi.
In 1965 our grandfather came to Delhi and started working in the Kirti Nagar timber market. He learned the trade the slow way: lifting planks, knocking on them to hear if they were sound, smelling fresh-cut sheesham, and watching which wood cracked in the Delhi summer and which held.
Over the years, people in the market began asking him which log was worth buying.
Our father grew up between those stacks. When he joined the business, he took what Dadaji knew about timber and turned it toward furniture.
He spent years visiting the workshops of small makers, learning which families carve best, who joins best, who finishes best, and which of them would never cut a corner. Today our shop in Kirti Nagar is where many of their pieces first meet the people who buy them.
You don’t learn wood from a book. You learn it with your hands, one plank at a time.
I’m Aman, the third generation. I grew up hearing timber talked about at the dinner table.
Woodmaa is how we are taking what our family knows, the wood, the makers and the eye for a good piece, beyond our market in Delhi: to homes, designers and stores in other cities and other countries.
What we know
Anyone can sell a table. Knowing whether it will still be straight in ten years is different. That judgement is what three generations in a timber market gives you.
Kirti Nagar is known for the quality and range of its timber. We work from that whole range, so a piece can be made in almost any wood you want.
Before a piece reaches you, we look at four things.
Wood that hasn’t dried properly moves, splits and warps after it reaches your home. We check the timber is seasoned before a piece is made, not after.
The grain decides where a leg, a top or a carved panel should come from, so the piece stays strong where it needs to be.
Mortise-and-tenon, dovetail, dowel. The joint decides how long a piece lasts. We look for proper joinery over nails and glue.
Wax, oil, lacquer or left natural. The finish should suit the wood and the room it is going to.
Dense and dark-streaked. The backbone of north Indian furniture.
Lighter and softer. Takes carving and colour well, and suits everyday pieces.
Naturally oily and golden-brown. Stands up to damp and heat.
If the market has it, we can make your piece in it. Tell us what the piece needs to do, and we will suggest the timber.
The makers
What we sell is made in small family workshops, not factories. Many of the carpenters come from the Badhai and Khati communities, families for whom woodwork has been the trade for generations, taught from father to son long before anyone called it “handicraft”.
Their work is under pressure. Machine-made furniture is cheaper and faster, and fewer young people pick up the chisel each year. When you buy from Woodmaa, the money goes back to these workshops and gives them a reason to keep going.
We know these makers by name. Many have worked with our family for years.
Detail is cut with chisels and gouges, so no two panels are exactly alike.
Joints are cut and fitted at the bench, piece by piece.
Sanded, oiled or polished by the same workshop that made it.
Every piece is looked over in Delhi before it goes anywhere.
Where it comes from
Our network runs through the woodcraft workshops of Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh, one of India’s oldest carving centres, and reaches makers in other parts of the country. We bring their work together in one place, so you deal with one family instead of twenty workshops.
The collection
Our first collection: round side tables in solid teak, made by hand and finished to a deep, warm polish. We would rather show you five good pieces than fifty ordinary ones. Each can be made in another size, finish or any wood the market has.
Measurements are in inches. Open any table to see every angle and its full size. Prices on request; trade buyers get a full spec sheet.
Made to order
Most of what we do is custom. A size that fits your alcove, a finish that matches your floor, fifty side tables for a hotel. We match the job to the right wood and the right workshop.
A photo, drawing or reference, with size and quantity.
We suggest the timber and the workshop best suited to it.
A drawing, a finish sample or a first piece before full making.
The workshop makes it, and we keep you updated.
Inspected in Delhi, packed with care, and sent to you.
For trade
India has thousands of skilled wood workshops, but finding them, checking them and getting consistent work out of them is hard from the outside. We have spent sixty years on the inside.
Visit or write
The best way to choose a piece is to touch it. Visit our shop in the Kirti Nagar timber market, or tell us what you are looking for and we will send photos and options.