Our main source for Northwest Fir is from Aurora Mills Architectural Salvage. I am happy to work directly with this business and to buy straight from their old-growth reclaimed barn-wood supply. I love that each piece of weathered lumber I pick is coming off of a Barn built in the early 1900’s, found and salvaged just between Portland and the coast. I also purchase all my antique hardware for my cabinets from this place exclusively, and I have been known to spend a lot of time here.
Our non-toxic paints come from YOLO Colorhouse. A local, zero v.o.c., paint company that makes premium, environmentally responsible products with a user-friendly color palette. Just choose a color from their indoor/outdoor swatch, or I can even match most custom colors, and I will distress the paint onto your legs, aprons, or cabinetry. However, you can always keep the furniture in natural-wood at your request. After the paint-job, we apply a hand-rubbed or permanent finish on the entire exposed surfaces and table tops.
Our permanent finish is a water-borne oil-based finish called Crystal Urethane. This product is created by Timber Pro Coatings - a local company specializing in non-toxic and low v.o.c. wood finishes. We use a satin sheen and apply numerous thin coats, finely sanding in-between each coat. This has proven to treat the wood well and bring out a crystal clear enhancement to grain patterns and texture. We choose to support this naturally made poly and we are very happy they provide an educated alternative to stains and finishes.
Got Wood?
Most of our pieces are over 99% recycled or reclaimed wood and lumber from various sources. For those of you interested, there is a guy in Sheridan, Oregon whom I shall just call “Rich the Woodguy” who buys wood from all over the northwest and kiln-dries it on his site. Not only is he just a good guy in general, but when asked, he can tell you where each piece came from…“oh yeah, that’s from the old munitions depot on The Presidio,” and “those shelves came out of a tractor warehouse in Everett.”
Most of what we use is fir, the bread and butter of the West Coast. Old growth wood from trees that were probably 300–400 years
when they were felled at the turn of the 20th century. It typically comes in simple but beautiful clear vertical grain
(known as CVG among wood geeks), but the beautiful thing is that every piece is truly unique. You never know what you’re going to find, or in our business, ‘uncover’. But that’s half the fun.
The other wood we use blends well: common pine, cedar, redwood, and spruce. We use them in various combinations that compliment the unique quality of each type. We like to respect each piece for its own identity as much as possible, including its history, knicks and dings, peeling layers of paint. There is something truly ‘original’ about appreciating something just as it is. Often times the legs for our tables come out rough–sawn stock in dimensions
greater than 4”x4”. We leave the CVG and old growth wood for our table tops. Especially since the older wood has weathered itself into a gorgeous
honey-amber, and we love to show it off!
We like to use an organic home-made and hand-rubbed finish on some pieces, depending on your needs, and how the piece is going to be used. Otherwise, and often times, we will use a durable and environmental permanent finish on our furniture. The home-made finish is mainly compromised of Organic Flax Oil and Oregon Bees Wax. The ingredients are a mixture of organic flax oil, bees wax, organic white vinegar, vodka, distilled water, organic fir essential oil, and organic lemon essential oil.
sample: oil & wax glossy finish
This finish has a warm amber glow and a soft feel. It is recommended to be reapplied and polished annually, if not more often. Truly an awesome recipe that we have experimented in perfecting. The vinegar helps to clean the wood, the vodka helps the oil absorb into the wood, the flax oil cures and protects the wood, and the bees wax seals it all in. The fir-oil is designed as an aromatic to linger after the vinegar evaporates, and the lemon oil acts as an anti-oxidant and preservative for the flax oil.
