A York craftsman is coming to terms with global fame – after his videos have clocked up views in the tens of millions.
Danny Stenhouse, aka Danny Sandhouse, has gone properly viral on social media.
People love the wood specialist’s videos of his restoration work. One of his TikTok films showing him at work on what is now the new Ossie studio on Coney Street has been viewed 8.7 million times.
An Instagram reel where he transforms a home living space was seen nearly 20 million times.
Danny, who is from York, has been sanding and restoring floors for around ten years. He previously worked with young people with behavioural needs and young people in care, before deciding that he wanted to start his own business.
“I have ADHD and Asperger’s, so I wanted to do something that was quite sensory,” Danny told YorkMix, “and with sanding, that was like instant gratification to me – like a huge dopamine hit.
“It seemed like the perfect thing for me – I can just turn on the machine and it’s just me and my own little world for eight hours a day.”
Danny also had ambitions to be a YouTuber, and posted some videos of his work online – but it was Instagram where it really started to take off.
He now has 146K followers on Instagram, 83K subscribers on YouTube, and 28K followers on TikTok.
“I knew that Instagram was where a lot of the home and interior stuff was, and it’s a good place for a business to be in general,” said Danny. He started posting videos on Instagram around a year ago, when he needed a distraction after Covid and struggles with his mental health.
“I started focusing on making these videos and I was just making them for my personal satisfaction – when people started responding to them positively and they got some good reactions, it signalled to me that this was something good that people liked.”
To date some of his videos have reached as many as 30 million views, which is “just insane. It feels not real, like I’m in a dream.”
For Danny, social media has turned into another branch of his business. With his social media profiles being monetised, “they’re generating the same revenue that I can generate on floors.”
You can find out more about Danny’s business on his website.
A challenge is creating a “balance between the two. I need floors to create the content but I’m also at a point now with a good followers base of people who also like me for me.
“Everything I’m getting, I’m re-investing back into my business.”
Danny is now able to have his own workshop space where he can film his video content, create video tutorials, and up-cycle products to sell. He is aiming to transition to the next stage of his business, which is selling furniture and wood products.
“It’s all kind of feeding into each other.”
“I want to try and use social media for positive things,” said Danny. “It might just be a guy doing woodwork, but it’s teaching people and empowering people.”
The viral reaction to his videos was unexpected, but “I’ve got a lot of self belief, and I just knew that if I kept going at this, it would come good – though I didn’t expect it to happen in a year!”
Danny mostly films and edits his content himself – but will sometimes ask his clients to hold the camera for him. “Sometimes they’d laugh. I get on really well with all my clients.
“You get a glimpse into so many people’s lives and lifestyles. I get some cool clients – some of them are architects, psychologists, doctors, lawyers, lords and ladies.”
Recently, Danny has worked in stately homes like Brockfield Hall and Bolton Hall, but it’s also the personal jobs that carry a lot of meaning too.
“My head of year at school, Mr Betts, got in touch and he wanted his floor doing – I did it for free because he was great with me at school when I needed support, and I felt I couldn’t ever pay him back.”
Though Danny is unsure whether the social media virality will continue, he’s enjoying it while it lasts.
“I keep saying it’s my Andy Warhol moment, it’s just my 15 minutes of fame. But even if I can just sustain a little bit of it in future, that’d be fantastic.”
Find out more about Danny’s work at his website.