This father-daughter duo craft hardwood timber lighting in their Gold Coast workshop
Written by
08 June 2026
•
4 min read
The Fluxwood Lighting showroom sits in an unassuming pocket of Currumbin, wedged between industrial tenancies and neighbouring workshops. Beside the showroom, a large roller door opens each morning to reveal the heart of the business. A workshop buzzing with machinery one moment, followed by the quieter repetition of hand sanding the next. Sawdust settles across machinery that has been here for decades and hardwood timbers sit patiently, waiting to become sculptural pendants destined for homes and interior projects across the country.
For Shari Lyon, the workshop is more than a place of work. It’s part of a family legacy that’s now into its third generation.
The story of Fluxwood traces back to Shari’s grandfather, who originally established a timber manufacturing business in Sydney producing packing cases for imported and exported goods. Over time, the business evolved into furniture manufacturing before relocating to the Gold Coast in the mid-1970s. Operating under the family name, Lyon Furniture supplied major Australian retailers for decades.
With her father part of the family business, Shari remembers plenty of time spent in the workshop growing up. Today, she works in that same workshop alongside her father and much of the original machinery remains in use.
“There’s something really special about continuing what Dad and my grandfather built,” she says. “The workshop is still very much the same workshop I grew up around.”
Eighteen months ago, Shari officially took over the business entirely, transitioning the workshop fully into lighting production after years of slowly developing the idea for Fluxwood Lighting alongside the family’s bespoke furniture brand.
After studying industrial design, Shari began looking at the workshop with fresh eyes, wanting to create something distinct from the furniture-making she had grown up around. What began as a university project turned into a business idea, with lighting offering an opportunity for Shari to carve out her own direction.
“I think we started out probably a bit naively… The first light we sold was around eight years ago and we hadn’t actually physically made it yet, it was sold from a concept render. But that was exciting, and then it was just a chain reaction.”
Today, the work Shari and her team of five produce is warm, sculptural and connected to the family’s long history of crafting with solid timber.
One week, the workshop is filled with the sound of timber being cut, shaped and routed, with Shari’s father, Chris, still on the tools each day handling the CNC machining. The next week might be quieter and slower, with the finishing stages of sanding and assembly.
In an industry increasingly dominated by imported products and mass manufacturing, Fluxwood’s commitment to local production feels increasingly rare. Every pendant is still designed, crafted, sanded and assembled entirely within the Currumbin workshop before being carefully packed and sent out across Australia.
Each design typically starts as a sketch, ideas slowly developed sometimes over months, even years. There’s no desire to meet current trends; instead, it’s about creating pieces that balance simplicity while celebrating the timber’s natural characteristics.
“I don’t want someone to buy something and five years later think it’s not trendy anymore,” says Shari. “I do a lot of drawings, I put a lot of thoughts on paper… you’ve got to try and find something that hits the mark that’s worth producing because no one else is doing it, or we just find it really cool and really interesting.”
From those initial sketches, new designs start taking form in three dimensions, its shape translated and carved into hardwoods, whether that be spotted gum, blackbutt, walnut or another timber that brings depth and character. Sometimes that means searching through an entire stack of timber to find the right grain, feature or tone for a particular customer with every light custom made to order.
“We usually know where the order’s going, or sometimes the customer asks for spotted gum, but a lighter spotted gum, or they want blackbutt with lots of veining. We’ll hunt around to find the right piece for them.”
This level of attention to detail isn’t new in this workshop, rather a continuation of a family’s work that has continued to enter homes for many decades. Thoughtful design shaped through craftsmanship and an understanding of materials built up over generations.
If you’re inspired by makers like Shari and the team at Fluxwood Lighting, ArchiPro makes it easy to discover the designers, makers and products shaping beautiful interiors across Australia. Explore projects for inspiration, discover locally crafted lighting and furniture, and start a project board to bring your ideas together.