Real Estate Old lumber is a trend for some of the best new homes

Real Estate
Old lumber is a trend for
some of the best new homes
By Allen Norwood
The Charlotte Observer
(MCT)
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Reclaimed lumber is among the
most environmentally friendly
building materials because, as
any 12-year-old can explain,
recycling is good for us and the
planet.
The wood is beautiful. A
floor of salvaged antique heart
pine glows with the patina of
decades, even centuries. Every
piece of barn siding is uniquely
weathered, which gives a oneof-a-kind appeal to walls and
furniture.
And, say Paul Atkinson of
Southend Reclaimed and Jonathan Kauffman of Kauffman
and Co., buyers appreciate the
tales behind reclaimed and salvaged lumber, too.
“Every piece of wood comes
with a story,” Atkinson said.
“Buyers want to know: Did it
come from a factory in Alabama,
or a warehouse in Kentucky?
It’s bringing history alive and
bringing it home.”
The two North Carolina companies, like such nationals as
Pottery Barn and Four Hands,
are responding to consumers’ appreciation for reclaimed
wood.
Atkinson’s company, Southend Reclaimed, specializes in
salvaged heart pine floors and
antique, hand-hewn beams. It
has begun selling old barn siding. It’s no longer in South
End, though. It has grown and
moved over the years. It’s headquartered in Cornelius, N.C.,
and operates a sawmill in the
Eastern North Carolina town of
Scotland Neck.
Kauffman and Co. is in Charlotte’s South End, though, on
Worthington Avenue. It sells
custom furniture, most crafted
of wood salvaged from barns in
Pennsylvania.
The national companies use
lots of reclaimed wood from
Asia and South America, where
teak and tropical hardwoods are
native.
A century or two ago, factories and other buildings mostly
were built with materials close
at hand. That means, for instance, that recycled planks and
timbers from New England are
likely to be different from those
salvaged in the Deep South.
“What you find around the
country correlates with what’s
growing there,” said Atkinson,
owner of Southend Reclaimed.
In the Southeast, heart pine
was available and was a tough,
durable choice for textile mill
floors. In Ohio and Pennsylvania, white oak was common.
Chestnut came from the Appalachians — before those trees
disappeared — and Douglas fir
was abundant out West.
Southend Reclaimed was
born a decade ago as the regional textile industry shrank. Mills
were sitting empty. The company’s founders thought to ask,
“Hey, what are you doing with
the wood and brick?” Now, the
company relies on a huge and
organized network to find entire
buildings to salvage. It sells antique brick as well as flooring,
timbers and barn siding.
“The company has grown …
as awareness of the beauty of
these woods has continued to
increase,” Atkinson said.
Kauffman launched Kauffman and Co. seven years ago,
he said, because he appreciates
the look of the salvaged lumber.
His company offers everything
from farm tables and kitchen
islands to entire bedrooms.
They’re built by a craftsman in
Lancaster, Pa.
“A lot of our customers bring
us a picture, and we start there,”
he said. “We work with local
designers. … Lots of our pieces are in vacation homes at the
mountains and the beach. (The
wood) is aged naturally, so we
don’t have to do any distressing.”
Public tastes are evolving as
our appreciation grows for reclaimed wood.
Ninety percent of Southend
Reclaimed’s business used to
consist of flooring, especially
heart pine. Now, hand-hewn
beams — so stunning in kitchens and great rooms — account
for half of wood sales.
Kauffman’s customers increasingly are choosing sophisticated instead of rustic country
looks. They want the patina and
natural distressing, but with
more contemporary lines.
Reclaimed items blend with
other furniture of all sorts, for
a collected look. Fans of reclaimed woods like to mix, rather than match. There are pieces
for every room of the house.
Wood prices vary by grade —
whether there are lots of knots
and color variations — and by
the length and width of planks.
Longer and wider is more expensive. Reclaimed pine costs
more than new oak, Atkinson
Audrey Edelman RealtyUSA Featured Property
Cortland Standard, Thursday, April 17, 2014 — 3A
T. Ortega Gaines/Charlotte Observer/MCT
Jonathan Kauffman, of Kauffman & Co., Crafters of Fine Furniture, in the showroom and
studio, does a fine touchup in February on a wood table, in Charlotte, N.C.
said, perhaps twice as much.
But antique pine flooring boards
are typically longer and wider
than new oak.
Groovystuff, based in Dallas, offers an amazing array
of items made from reclaimed
teak. Its eight collections range
from Adirondack rustic — some
items even incorporate old farm
equipment — to funky eclectic.
Check out the sculptural Bandera dinner table. Information:
groovystuff.com.
Four Hands offers furniture
made of reclaimed hardwood
from South America. Some
items have finishes of weathered paint — others are bare
weathered wood. Four Hands,
based in Austin, Texas, also
makes items for Anthropologie, Pottery Barn, Restoration
Hardware and West Elm. Visit
fourhands.com.
Atkinson and Kauffman —
and the top furniture makers
who visit the High Point Market twice a year — understand
that there’s a finite supply of reclaimed wood. There are lots of
old mills and barns, and lots of
ancient cypress logs at the bottom of rivers, but not an endless
number.
What happens when the supply runs out?
Well, that will be a chapter in
the story, too.
———
©2014 The Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, N.C.). Distributed
by MCT Information Services.
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