FINDING WOOD

We are lucky to have many family and friends. Our luck continues when they hear about our woodworking adventures and they let us salvage wood from their properties to turn into good wood pieces for your or their home. We do not cut down trees for our projects but rather collect pieces that fell or were felled for other reasons. Here are some of those stories. 

Relatives have a cottage on leased land. The land owner determined several mature poplar (aka cottonwood) trees needed to be cut down. When the land owner cuts down trees on the cottage lots around this lake, the cottagers are not notified, they have no say in the decision and then are responsible for most of the wood removal and disposal. We milled some of those pieces into table-size biscuits. Some have become tables and others are still available (see our BUY wood page).

Good friends had to cut down a magnolia tree that was as old as their grown children. Some pieces were piled/stored and then, many years later, given to us. Some went into inventory and became adult snacking trays (see our IDEAS gallery). Some became personal-sized servers for our friends who gave the wood and some became coasters for one of the children. Each coaster had a magnolia flower hand-painted by their sister. An incredibly personal and sentimental gift.

Other good friends had to sadly remove some mature birch trees to work on their cottage. They gave us some. We made them an epoxy-filled serving board was made to remember the trees they had lost. Other serving boards were made and some remains in our inventory.

We live in a neighbourhood built in the 1950s. A neighbour sold their house and the new owner renovated it. During construction, original soft and hardwood trees in the yard were felled. We happened to be home and asked the workers if we could divert some pieces from the chipper. They kindly agreed.

A good friend took over the family homestead along the shores of the St. Lawrence River. Their dad was a bit of a collector - picked up pieces of wood then stored them in the shed. They let us "shop" the wood shed as they were clearing out the home and property to make way for restoration. We acquired some lovely treasures of different wood slabs and even some redwood beam from the house. It would date back to the 1800s! That beam, in particular, became some gorgeous tables made with ocean blue epoxy resin. 

It's a continuous effort to find and salvage supplies - avoiding buying from the store whenever possible. Thrifting found us some table legs that were sanded and repainted. A client was replacing a side table used for decades with one of our handcrafted pieces. The legs from that old table were repurposed for the new one.

Online markets are a favourite wood source for us. We don't always have all the wood needed on hand so are grateful to folks giving away materials. Thank you to those who post their usable renovation materials, furniture and fencing and decking materials for pick-up before sending them to landfill.

Throughout the summer we keep an eye on the lands around our own cottage. As we walk and ride through the bush, we gather some of the fallen birch. Branches are popular for winter and holiday porch decor. We offer a small batches of this natural collection each year.

For those interested clients, we happily share the story of where and how we found the wood for their custom handcrafted piece.