I’m in IMHO, so here it goes! I’ve been hearing about people doing home projects and seeking reclaimed wood. For those of you that aren’t familiar with this, reclaimed wood is wood that was used in another project. Such as from a barn or house, whatever. Instead of tossing the wood in the dumpster, they take the old wood which is something 100 years old and reuse it.
Now on the surface of this, this sounded just great. You would get this old beautiful wood, which was perhaps ripped from the best part of the virgin Rain Forrest and now it’s going to have new life once again on your kitchen floor or whatever in your house.
Not so fast – I saw the reclaimed wood that’s going into someone’s house who in my opinion has my more than taste or sense. The wood looks like shit. The grain and look of the pieces don’t even go together. If I saw this wood sitting in a pile in front of someone’s house I would consider it trash because it looks just like trash. Then I thought, well, there must be a great savings cost to this. Nope, it cost 3 to 4 times of new great looking wood.
What the hell are these designers thinking talking home owners into this bullshit? If I a home for sale and it had this shitty wood in there, unless it had some fantastic story like it was wood reclaimed from Lincoln’s study or something, I’d have all that crap torn out after they accepted my low-ball offer on their house.
It very much depends on the quality - I’ve seen very nice, worn-but-not-knackered wood for sale in reclaim yards. I’ve also seen stuff that looks like old scaffold planks. It’s quite useful if you already have a period home and you’re doing work that you want to blend in with the existing.
Reclaimed stone and bricks are quite popular here in the UK for just that reason - something like Cotswold stone, for example, looks really garish when brand new and takes a few years to weather in.
Personally, I wouldn’t touch reclaimed stuff unless I could go to the reclaim yard and pick it out myself.
I wouldn’t base my entire perception on a single experience. What your friend has ordered may not be top quality and it could be that once it’s been cut and finished the look will improve markedly. Personally I’d love to have a wall redone in it. I think it adds warmth and character, especially if it appears to have been hand hewn.
Have you looked at some of the design sites to see other, possibly far more attractive examples? DIY’s Barnwood Builders? There’s some really attractive stuff out there if you know where to look.
Um, okay? Typically reclaimed wood would be installed, then sanded and finished. It will still have character and look rustic, but it is going to look different after it’s finished. Do a Google Image search to see some examples of finished products. You may still not care for the rustic feel, bit lots and lots of people love it, myself included. I’m not willing to pay the huge premium for it, but it’s gorgeous.
I use reclaimed wood for a lot of projects but only if it is superior somehow to new lumber or at least equal. I will harvest my own wood from teardown piles. If I am making something where the wood will be showing I run it through my planer and it simply looks like new wood again. Sometimes I fill nail holes with putty and have built tables with lots of puttied up nail holes. It just depends on how it will be used.
I guess some people may like the rustic look of reclaimed wood straight off the side of the barn. Usually the wood is sawn, planed, or sanded to remove the surface layer before use. A skilled carpenter then needs to select the re-finished wood based on it’s characteristics to produce finished walls, floors, doors, molding, etc. Further surface treatment with bleaching, staining, oiling, etc. can change the look and feel of the wood dramatically.
edwardcoast, you may be seeing someone who was foolish in their choice of wood, or you’re just forming an opinion based on the raw material without seeing how it might turn out. Considering how so many people make decisions about their houses these days foolishness wouldn’t surprise me at all. But maybe they got a really good deal, or their more concerned about the green aspect of re-using old wood. And maybe they like crappy looking wood and don’t care whether it adds to the value of the house or not.
As a woodworker, I agree with the comments that once the wood has been surfaced and finished, it will not resemble its former state in the least. An old piece of cedar siding will look stunning with a new finish on it.
I don’t know what wood the OP has seen, but I did see the reclaimed walnut coffee table my grandfather made as a wedding present for my sister and it was so gorgeous it made me sick. He showed me what the wood he started out with looked like and I assume the finishing process involved dipping the wood in virgin’s blood because only black magic could explain the change in quality and appearance of the wood.
You either need to be a really smart buyer or know someone who is. If you do, you can get some fantastic pieces that simply can’t be had today without some serious over-charges for special cutting and orders. I needed some oak planks to make a type of chair - 1.75"x30"x5’ or better. Checking some salvage places I was able to snag some old barnwood that worked perfect from a large enough pile that I could match grain well enough for the use. For full disclosure, I did sand down and refinish the wood; I didn’t use it exactly as found.
But for someone just off the street or the normal contractor to pick out something like that? Or simply buy it and use it as found? Maybe not so good a result.
Nicole Curtis, of Rehab Addict (I’m a Rehab Addict addict) insists on using reclaimed wood flooring when she can, because when she patches floors it’s much easier to blend in 100-year-old floor panels with other 100-year-old floor panels than it is to blend in brand new floor panels.
When they sand, stain and wax the floors they are a thing of beauty.
She puts some work into the boards before they go down, too - usually removing nails.
Yes, I believe that for tobacco barns they used older trees so as to have wider planks and they were particularly straight so that the even gap between the planks would allow for consistent drying, both of which now make for exceptional reclaimed use.
A lot of old wood is much better quality than can be found now. The trees were much larger when harvested and they often had much more distinct grain for some reason I’ve heard but don’t recall. Some species such as Chestnut are rare now and the excellent wide boards they produced can’t be found anymore. Some species like Cedar never get to grow as tall as they used to and the heart wood is in shorter supply, a general problem with many species.
Years ago my then wife and I had a kitchen built out of recycled wood from old buildings. It was the first attempt by a guy who up until then had been a cabinet maker. It received universal praise. He actually asked us not to tell anyone how much we had paid because when he was finished he realized he hadn’t charged us anywhere near enough.
