The Belgian Woodworker Who’s Gone Viral in Arabic

Kirsten Dillen never expected to go viral. She certainly never expected it to happen in Arabic. But today, her TikTok videos—where she renovates furniture and crafts wooden toys while narrating in flawless Egyptian Arabic—have racked up millions of views, with her most-watched video sitting at over 7 million.

“I wasn’t trying to be an entertainer,” she shrugs. “I just thought—so many people have these old pieces at home and no idea what to do with them. Why not show them how?”

Dillen, a 29-year-old Belgian woodworker based in Cairo, has built an unexpected following by doing what few would expect—teaching Egyptians how to fix things.

The first thing that hits you when you step into Kirsten’s woodshop in Maadi is the scent—warm, sharp sawdust mixed with the deep, familiar bitterness of Turkish coffee. The space is a world unto itself, where heavy-duty machinery hums alongside the rhythmic clatter of chisels, and unfinished wooden toys sit waiting to be transformed by her hands.

On one wall, shelves overflow with tiny, colourful climbing frames, wooden balance boards, and intricate handcrafted puzzles—pieces that could easily belong in a Scandinavian design catalog but are, in fact, made right here, in a workshop helmed by a woman who grew up not even being allowed to touch woodworking tools.

Kirsten wasn’t always building children’s toys in a Cairo workshop. In another life, she was in Belgium, lost in the dizzying heat of Michelin-starred kitchens where she worked 12-to-14-hour shifts, six days a week, mastering the art of precision. Before that she was the girl who cleaned up after her father and brother’s woodworking messes, watching in quiet fascination as they built entire tables out of discarded tree trunks.

“There’s a Belgian saying,” she tells me, “that we are born with a brick in our stomach because we love to build everything ourselves.” But growing up, woodworking was for her father, for her engineer brother—not for her. Instead, she was ushered into the kitchen, where she learned to cook but always kept one eye on the woodshop.

The idea of picking up tools herself only came later, after she left behind the brutal world of fine dining, fell in love with an Egyptian, and moved to Cairo in 2018, knowing only a handful of Arabic words. “That first year was… intense,” she laughs. “I worked crazy late hours in kitchens, I couldn’t communicate well, and I had no idea what I was doing here.”

When her husband underwent knee surgery, Kirsten found herself restless, wanting to build something. She remembered the balance boards she’d seen in therapy clinics back home and figured—why not make one herself? One board led to another, then to climbing toys for friends’ kids, and before she knew it, orders started coming in. Parents in Cairo, long used to importing quality wooden toys from Europe, suddenly had a local option.

“I think there was a gap in the market that I didn’t even realise I was filling,” she says, adjusting a wooden climbing arch. “People wanted these things. They just didn’t know where to get them.”

Her guest room-turned-woodshop quickly became too small. She moved into a dedicated workshop, started collecting bigger and better tools, and launched Kinkajou, named after a playful, tree-climbing animal that reminded her of the way kids love to explore. But it wasn’t just about making toys—it was about making something last.

“Every house in Egypt has something old,” she explains. “People want modern things, but they keep the old stuff because they see the value in it. They just don’t always know how to fix it.”

Kirsten started out quietly making balance boards and Montessori-style toys. Then came the videos. Encouraged by a group of woodworkers she met at monthly “wood therapy” meetups, she started recording the process of fixing up old furniture and explaining it in Arabic. Initially, she resisted doing voiceovers—she was still self-conscious about her fluency. But when she finally caved, something unexpected happened.

People loved it.

Her TikTok videos—where she renovates furniture and walks viewers through the process in surprisingly flawless Egyptian Arabic—started racking up views. And then more views.

Her following exploded, but what surprised her the most was who was watching. “Eighty percent of my audience is women,” she says.

Kirsten isn’t slowing down anytime soon. She’s expanding beyond toys, beyond just woodworking, into home renovation content—projects people actually want to try themselves. She’s also five months pregnant with a baby girl. She says she hopes to teach her daughter how to woodwork “if interested.”