Building with Reclaimed Wood … AND New Wood Too

Our brand is still about building custom pieces of furniture using reclaimed wood from old barns.  No change there.

But believe it or not, we’re building more pieces of furniture using new wood (also known as “virgin wood”) too.  This is due to many customer requests.

It often makes perfect sense too.  Here’s why.

A kitchen island built for one of our customers (marble top) made with all new wood

Reclaimed wood is now a “high demand” commodity.  Its scarcity alone makes it more expensive than new woods used in furniture making. 

There is also a lot of work that must be done prior to using reclaimed wood in a piece of handcrafted furniture.  Old nails must often be removed.  The wood must be extensively cleaned up.  A lot of elbow grease goes into this whole process and this also adds to its cost. 

Sofa table built with new wood and reclaimed wood

There is, however, another reason why we’re now using more virgin woods in some of our products.  We’ve discovered that new woods are simply very good to use when building farm tables in certain colors.  

Reclaimed wood typically reflects different variations of colors in finished pieces.  In our opinion, this is great.  But the truth is it’s not for everyone.  Some of our customers don’t want their pieces to reflect as many red or brown tones as they do very light to grey ones.  And that is very difficult to achieve with reclaimed lumber.  As a matter of fact, we’ve developed some really neat finishing techniques in our shop that work especially well with new woods. 

With reclaimed wood, one typically sees things such as fine lines and small cracks, which of course add to its unique artisan character.  New wood, on the other hand, can often be used to create nearly identical pieces of furniture.  This fact is very appealing to some of our customers if they’re seeking a certain appearance for their custom-made piece.

And here is another neat thing …

Wine cabinet built with new wood (bottom) and reclaimed wood (top)

We’re now building some pieces using BOTH reclaimed wood and new wood.  For example, a two-piece buffet … with a painted base cabinet built using all new wood (such as poplar or maple) … and a top cabinet piece made with reclaimed wood.

Since the top part will be the thing that really stands out on buffet like that, a customer can have us craft the top with reclaimed wood.  But the bottom piece, which will be painted over, can easily be made out of new wood (instead of pricier reclaimed wood).

Some of our customers really love this approach.

In order to accommodate requests for custom “new wood” pieces we’ve hired a couple of experts -- true wood craftsmen.   They’re really great guys!  And best of all for our customers, each one has over 25 years of experience building custom furniture pieces out of new wood. 

Both were sort of “semi-retired” but are now crafting furniture for us full time.  We’re so glad they’re a part of our FFTB team.  And we’re excited to now able to offer more custom-built pieces of furniture for clients in new wood.

Give me a call if you have any questions about what we might be able to create for your home.

.....................

Please visit the following pages for even more information:

Furniture Gallery Page: http://www.furniturefromthebarn.com/reclaimed-barnwood-furniture-gallery.php

Farmhouse Tables Page: http://www.furniturefromthebarn.com/reclaimed-farmhouse-tables.php

Customer Showcase Page: http://furniturefromthebarn.com/customer-showcase.php

Have any questions?  Contact us anytime: http://furniturefromthebarn.com/contact-us.php