As hardwoods and old growth lumber have becomes more scarce and expensive, reclaimed lumber has become a popular way to source material. Whether it came from a barn, a demolition site or someones trash, reclaimed wood can be reborn into some of the most beautiful pieces, full of life and character. While hunting for a trove of hundred year old walnut is not always a fruitful endeavor, sometimes opportunity comes a knocking, and such was the case recently for us.
One of our craftsman, Andy, comes from a long lineage of woodworkers. His family started, Cresent Planing Mill way back in 1890. After supporting his family for four generations, Cresent Planing Mill strugged to recover from the recession in 2008. The family decided to close the company’s doors in 2012 after 122 years. Part of that process was auctioning off the assets but after that happened there was still a large amount of scrap wood laying around that no one had claimed. Andy's family was gracious enough to offer us the opportunity to pick through what was left so we rented a truck and spent a few days rummaging through the 80,000sf, 122 year old building.
We backed our box truck to the dock, rolled up our sleeves, and dove in. There was no doubt that a lot of that wood was older than us. Walnut, mahogany, maple, red oak, white oak, sapele, ash, douglas fir filled the truck as we dreamt of what we could create. Be sure and keep an eye out as we will be adding some reclaimed Cresent products to our Artificer Wood Works signature line of products.
