With the surname Wood it was almost written in the stars that this former DT teacher would have an aptitude for carpentry.

Aptly-named Lauren Wood, who lives in Larkfield, has been making a name for herself on the Channel 4 competition show Handmade: Britain's Best Woodworker.

The programme, hosted by Mel Giedroyc, features 10 woodwork enthusiasts from across Britain who have been battling to be named the country's best woodworker by two judges.

Each week the contestants create a new woodworking project based on a set design brief.

Their challenges have included making daybeds, childhood-inspired toys and sea-inspired sculptures.

They also take part in a skills task, with challenges such as pyrography – decorating wood by burning a design on the surface with a heated metal point – and turning a spinning top, which affords them the opportunity to be awarded with immunity.

The series began on September 21 and airs weekly on Wednesdays at 8pm on Channel 4.

Lauren, who has reached the show's semi-final, due to be shown tomorrow, currently works for her twin sister's landscape architecture firm, Hill-Wood & Co, in Maidstone, but she has loved woodwork since she was a child.

She said: “I've always been interested in building things, like as a kid I had Lego not Barbies."

She said the garden makeover television series Ground Force inspired her and her twin, Lydia, to start a landscaping business in their early teens.

They began by mowing lawns and strimming, but soon ended up building patios, decking and sheds.

She continued: "My love for building just absolutely exploded then."

The 36-year-old has a degree in cabinet making and was a design and technology teacher for 11 years and taught at Chislehurst and Sidcup Grammar School in Bexley, and Cornwallis Academy and Maplesden Noakes in Maidstone.

She lives with her wife, Martha Wood, and their two children, Kit, three, and Etta, 20 months. She said: "My wife made me apply for the show. I am a home girl. I don’t get stressed about things but I am a home girl and I like being at home.

"But I watched all of series one in one weekend, and I was like, 'Oh my God, if there was ever a show for me, it was that'. So that was it, I applied."

Lauren is well aware of the fact that her name so aptly matches her profession. "I do think it was meant to be," she said. "My name is Wood, as is my twin's surname. I will make anything out of wood, and my twin is a landscape architect, and as kids we started a gardening business.

"It was written in our paths. Trees are definitely part of both our careers. And obviously someone in my family must have worked with wood historically, there must have been a link there."

Lauren has named her Instagram account 'woodsmything', explaining: "When people ask your party trick, I don't really have one, but wood is just my thing. It's the only thing I think I properly fully get. It just makes sense to me."

You can click here to visit Lauren's Instagram page where she shares her woodworking projects, and her weekly masterpieces being put to use.

So far in the competition, Lauren's crafts include a children's toy moped, which her children now regularly use, a day bed which her daughter Etta now sleeps in, and a sculpture of a penguin.

When asked which item she was most proud of, she said: "I'm chuffed with the little moped, because I don't see myself as an engineer and I generally wouldn't make something with moving parts, other than a drawer, so that really pushed me and my understanding of what I could do.

"All of my builds show pure joinery, I never used nails or screws. And I'm really proud of the penguin. I've never sculpted anything ever in my life, so that was a first for me."

But Lauren is also proud of many of her pieces outside of the show. She said: "I made a ring box for my wife when I was going to propose to her. It was only a small item but I put a lot of love into it because of the sentiment that was going into that. I could tell you something I'm proud of about most things that I've made.

"I think actually that's kind of what is so true to me about woodwork. It's my passion, it's my love, it's my joy. And because it's those things, I make it well, and I make it like it should be made, because you don't rush something you enjoy doing.

"When you make something out of wood that you want to hold and you want to touch, and you want to investigate it and see how it works, it needs to be interesting. And everything I do and make, has kind of got a piece of me in it.

"I'd like to think if I came across something in the future that maybe I'd made and given to a friend 15 years ago, and they gave it to someone else, who gave it to someone else, and then I found it, I'd like to think I'd know that piece I made."

Lauren described taking part in the programme as a "slightly surreal" experience. She continued: "I didn't anticipate this. My everyday life is different now."

She added that the "high pressure environment" of the competition did not stress her out though, adding: "Thing's don't bother me. I don't get stressed, I just always attempt things. I just grin and give it a go. But it is physically exhausting.

"And the hardest part is, you spend every day, almost every hour together, then one of you goes home. Because of the pandemic we were all there in one bubble and we did become a family. Another contestant Tanya was my best mate in there, we see loads of each other now but it was hard to see her go."

The mum-of-two continued that the show's technicians were always there to lend a helping hand – although they are not allowed to help build, they are able to hold things and pass tools.

Lauren said of host Mel Giedroyc: "Mel is the exact same in real life as she seems on screen. She's the most friendly, approachable person. She really cares about the show, and about us.

"She spent so much of her free time with us, and usually presenters don't do what she does."

The former DT teacher said she hopes the programme will encourage those interested in woodworking to give it a go. She said: "You can just sit and carve a spoon, you can whittle little things, make chopping boards and coasters. This show has shown me there's more I want to do."

She says she is planning to learn sign language next year after meeting fellow contestant, civil servant Dafydd, who is deaf. She said: "My older sister is deaf and I instantly had a connection with Dafydd, because I knew to speak clearly so he could read my lips. I knew so many of the barriers he had, but I don't know sign language. My big sister doesn't know sign language.

"The reason is that the school we went to didn't encourage us to learn it because they thought it would isolate the hearing impaired students, but actually, if my whole school had learned it, we would have included not excluded them."

As for her future, Lauren is working on a website for her products, including chairs, tables, lamps, and a personal request section.

She said: "I would love to think there is more woodwork on the cards for me. Hopefully I'll be able to do a bit more woodwork than I currently do.

"I think IKEA closed the woodworking door for many of us, by providing its affordable in-trend furniture. But if people do appreciate high-quality bespoke products then I'm hopeful that a door I thought maybe was closed, has reopened."

You can watch Lauren in the semi-final of Handmade: Britain's Best Woodworker tomorrow (Wednesday) at 8pm on Channel 4.