It is quicker for Cathy Berenberg to point out the furniture in her Kaneohe living room that she did not make.

The mostly koa furniture and decorative items large and small that she did make with her own two hands far outnumber the others. “I never had wood shop” while growing up, she said.

She works full time in real estate at Century 21 All Islands, “but I’m an artist,” she said.

Berenberg will buy koa and other types of lumber at which other woodworkers might turn up their noses. She loves gnarly wood and incorporates into her work as design elements the imperfections that others might reject.

Berenberg finds knots appealing, for instance. She will strengthen unstable knots with epoxy to preserve the interesting feature the knot adds to the piece of lumber and will in turn lend to the finished piece.

“I love a natural edge,” she said. She also likes spalted wood, which contains a fungus that causes color changes in the grain.

While she now makes furniture and other large-scale items, she once was known as a carver.

In those days she would not start out thinking she would carve a cat, for instance, because “you have to find a piece of wood that is already a cat,” she said. The carver’s job, then, is to release the cat from the wood. Horses, giraffes and even a life-size boy were some of the other subjects she carved.

As for the furniture, she might start out thinking she will make one thing, but her inner artist will insist she go in a different direction.

She recently started what she believed would be a blanket box, but once she looked over two side pieces that had been prepared, she realized “that just says, ‘I’m a bench,’” she said. A bench it will become.

Berenberg and her sister, Mary Bellis, who lives in Pennsylvania, are separated by thousands of miles but still manage to be close and work on projects together ranging from woodworking to staging houses Berenberg is selling.

“My weaknesses are her strengths,” she said.

“I don’t do fabrics,” but her sister does, so Berenberg will make a lamp and her sister will create a shade for it. Likewise, her sister will create a shade, and Berenberg will create a lamp to complement it.

During one of Bellis’ visits to Hawaii, the pair made about 60 small koa Christmas trees and decorated them with miniature ornaments from Ben Franklin Crafts.

Berenberg once traveled to Pennsylvania to help Bellis renovate a home she had purchased. Despite her sister’s encouragement to rest after her trip, Berenberg was in the house swinging a sledgehammer not long after her flight touched down.

In her real estate career, she stages houses for sale, or sets them up for maximum appeal to buyers, as is a standard practice.

“I love staging,” she said with gleaming eyes. “When I stage, I empty out my house,” she chuckled.

While real estate photographer Bryan DeVore regularly works with her on staging, Berenberg also consults her sister.

Berenberg raved about a simple step her sister took while staging a house in Lanikai. Her sister used colorful fruit and fabrics to draw potential buyers’ eyes all the way through the house and out the kitchen pass-through to the lanai and the view beyond it.

Berenberg’s pieces were formerly available at retail, but now with her full-time real estate career, she sells her items only twice a year, as a featured artist at the Punahou Carnival and at an annual craft fair in her neighborhood on the same day as the Kaneohe Christmas Parade.

“I’ve been an entrepreneur for 30 years,” she said, having moved to Hawaii 31 years ago.

She’s been doing it for decades, possibly because her father was a “DIY guy” who would not allow her to help with projects.

Her brothers “were supposed to help,” but her father made it clear she was to become a “secretary, nurse or schoolteacher” when she grew up.

We’ve come a long way, baby.

Born in Pennsylvania, she moved to Maryland before coming to Hawaii. In Maryland two key things happened in her life: Time-Life introduced a series of do-it-yourself books, and she started watching “This Old House,” starring Bob Vila, on PBS.

Each month she would get a new book, and the one about electrical work got her thinking, “Oh boy, I can put dimmer switches in every room,” she laughed.

A book on woodworking that explained tools and described creating joints and other techniques set the direction for the rest of her life.

Berenberg used strictly hand tools for 10 years, even undertaking large home improvement projects using only hand tools because she felt she had to earn the right to buy a power tool. Maybe it was because “I still had my father’s voice in my head saying, ‘Girls are not supposed to be doing this,’” she said.

Injuries from a car accident made her “regretfully” give up carving, but seeing how driven and energetic she is, Berenberg gives the impression that she will never be able to give up woodworking.

“My grandmother’s 103, so I figure I’ve got a good 40 years left,” she said with a laugh.

“Buy Local” runs on Aloha Fridays. Reach Erika Engle at 529-4303, erika@staradvertiser.com or on Twitter as @erikaengle.