What Is Reclaimed Barnwood?

At Western Heritage Furniture, we always go the extra mile to seek out authentic, sustainable materials. Our Old Growth wood reclamation project redefines the term “renewable resource” by reclaiming virgin hardwood from old, deserted buildings and giving it a second life.

All across America, the abandoned barns, railcars, and farmhouses of our ancestors are either demolished or left to decay. However, we’ve made it possible to reuse the wood from these venerable buildings and bring back bygone eras through responsible inspection, sorting, grading, and selection.

Each piece of aged and weathered barnwood tells a unique story. Every crack or nail hole, every notch or axe mark speaks of American history and gives each board a character all its own. We hand-select each piece of wood so that every table we make has a completely unique pattern and authentic detail.

A Personal Touch for Your Home

For a home decorator, a dining room table crafted from authentic barnwood is more than just a simple choice of wood. Anyone can choose just to use new-grown hickory, cedar, rustic cherry, or aspen for a house and pay the price for it in dollars. 

Reclaimed barnwood makes a statement as a living piece of American history brought into your home. A table made from barnwood gives you the authenticity of the old frontier, and becomes the centerpiece of your family history whenever you gather around it.

Western Heritage Furniture uses only the highest quality wood to construct every piece of our growing dining table collection. When purchasing from us, you can rest assured that the dining room table you’ve chosen will continue to tell its story for decades and generations to come.

A Better Future Through Conservation

Another reason to consider barnwood as the best wood for your dining room table is its sustainability. By purchasing a dining table made of reclaimed wood, you support a nationwide woodworker initiative to support growth through sustainable methods. 

There’s no need to feel concerned that using wood for your home decor might harm our national forests. When you choose reclaimed barnwood, you become part of the solution that will help support reforestation efforts, protect our nation’s heritage, and preserve the beauty of our natural resources.

Reclaimed Barnwood Furniture

When you want to infuse a rustic spark into your dining room, it’s not only about the type of wood you use. It’s also about the story that wood tells, how it oozes with an authentic scent of history at every family gathering. Located in historic Jerome, Arizona—once a booming copper-mining town of the 1800s—Western Heritage Furniture seeks to preserve our storied past. Visit us today so that we can work on bringing history to life in your home.

Photo by Terren Hurst on Unsplash

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What Kind of Wood Is Ghostwood?

The most well-known characteristic of Ghostwood is that it’s made from wood salvaged from abandoned buildings. You might also hear it referred to as Montana Ghostwood or Reclaimed Barnwood. The founder of Western Heritage Furniture, Tim McClellan, coined the name Ghostwood in order to honor the pioneers who first harvested these timbers and for the lost forests of old-growth their wood came from.  

How Is Ghostwood Furniture Made?

At Western Heritage Furniture, we bring aged timbers back to life as stunning solid-wood furniture. Salvaged wood has a particularly smooth, dry texture and makes beautiful furniture. Often made from Douglas Fir and old-growth pine, Ghostwood will bring a fresh but rustic look to your home.

We also reuse wood salvaged from old buildings in order to avoid waste and honor the history of each piece we find. Your Ghostwood furniture could come from a rustic barn or a historic structure. If you’re looking for a waste-free, dependable wood with years of America’s history in its grooves, we can suggest a variety of our Ghostwood pieces. 

Ghostwood Furniture in Arizona

Our Ghostwood collection can accent any space you’re furnishing. Some of our favorites include our Ghostwood Writing Desk, where you can reminisce about going back in time while writing a letter to a friend or writing your next book. You can customize your Ghostwood desk by choosing the color of nailheads, the base, and the leather. 

Made from reclaimed barnwood that is more than 100 years old, our Ghostwood Dining Tables will surely spark up an interesting conversation with your guests. Its rough-hewn legs and patterned top give this handcrafted table a character all its own. Choose from several different patterns of light and dark-toned wood.

Located in Jerome, Arizona, Western Heritage Furniture serves many of the surrounding cities in the area, including Sedona and Phoenix. If you’d like more information on any of our Ghostwood products, please don’t hesitate to ask. Contact us at 800-616-1424 or send us a message today.

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What is reclaimed wood?

Reclaimed wood is lumber sourced from barns and old buildings that is then reused for other purposes such as furniture. The majority of reclaimed lumber originally came from old-growth forests. During the 1800s, American forests had large quantities of strong trees at record-breaking heights. Builders harvested them for many different types of structures that now lie abandoned and derelict. Today, the remains of these wooden buildings can be reclaimed to make furniture.

In our previous post, we talked about Ghostwood. We coined the term “Ghostwood” in the late nineties as a nod to the fact that our shop is in Jerome Arizona which is one of the more famous Ghost Towns in the west. In its heyday, Jerome was the World’s leading copper producer and had a population of over 15,000 people. By the mid-fifties, the mines were all but shut down and the population had almost entirely evacuated leaving behind a handful of hardy souls who scraped by in any manner they could.  In the late sixties and seventies, groups of young “hippies” had found Jerome which was an ideal spot to unplug from the World. The old Jeromans and the new hippies slowly revitalized the dying town into a tourist destination that is now World renowned.

Why do we use it?

Reclaimed wood is a sustainable, environmentally friendly option that has years of history behind it. At Western Heritage Furniture, we strive to preserve our natural resources. By making use of historical lumber, we eliminate the need to cut down additional trees. 

Compared to freshly cut wood, reclaimed wood is sturdier and often has a higher quality. Old-growth trees develop heartwood, which makes their lumber harder and more resistant to rotting. 

Reclaimed wood also makes great furniture because of its unique textures and colors. Lumber reclaimed from old barns and buildings that are 100 to 200 years old has marks and cracks that give it more personality and character. You can feel the experiences that the wood has been through in its grooves and talk about its history with your guests.

Reclaimed Wood Furniture in Arizona

When you buy reclaimed wood furniture from Western Heritage Furniture, you know that you’re getting a sustainable product that honors our country’s history. We grade and sort each piece of wood we use to ensure it meets our highest standards, is structurally sound and durable. We believe that the process of turning reclaimed wood into furniture is an art—our handcrafted furniture is bench made, which means that each piece is made by one craftsman. 

While this method may take longer than a production line, our furniture has the added value of craftsmanship and sustainability, with a story behind each piece. If you have questions about our reclaimed lumber, our friendly staff would love to share more information and help you select your next piece of furniture. Contact us at 800-616-1424 or send us a message today.

Photo by Cristina Gottardi

The post What is Reclaimed Wood & Why Do We Use It? appeared first on WHF Jerome.