I’ve been pricing cabinets for clients lately and had a serendipitous phone call from a local shop. Rick, the sales manager at ~Woodshanti~, was contacting designers in San Francisco (I’m guessing as part of a New Year’s resolution). He invited me to check out their sustainable wood-working shop in Bayview and I was glad he did.

Set in one of the industrial pockets in Bayview, Woodshanti has a sizable shop where they were working on some beautifully crafted millwork pieces. The company is a worker-owned, FSC certified shop.  FSC is an independent, non-governmental, not-for-profit organization established to promote the responsible management of the world’s forests.  They follow the forest management practices and the wood products through the supply chain documenting the Chain of Custody (COC) through to the sale to the customer. From their website:

“FSC certification provides a credible link between responsible production and consumption of forest products, enabling consumers and businesses to make purchasing decisions that benefit people and the environment as well as providing ongoing business value”.

It is the gold standard for sustainability in the lumber industry and this is my first visit to a certified shop!

Rick tours me through the shop and tells me in great depth about the way things are done here and why.  Their wood products come from a variety of sustainable sources including salvage of fallen trees.  The shop has machinery to do almost anything in-house which allows them to control their high level of craftsmanship. They use only one type of finish – a plant-based, single coat oil called Rubio Monocoat that contains zero VOC’s and bonds with the wood in a single application. The Monocoat product was originally developed for floors and can stand up to a beating either under foot or in a high traffic or wet location like a kitchen or restaurant setting. The absence of VOC’s makes or a better work environment in the shop, but also negates the production of a petrochemical product for their use.  Nothing here is off-gassing and no giant fans are running to air out any fumes.  This is a great thing in an industrial shop.

A word about VOC’s:

Studies by the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) and other researchers have found that VOCs (volatile organic compounds) are common in indoor environments and their levels may be two to hundreds of times higher than outdoors. There may be anywhere from 50 to hundreds of individual VOCs in the indoor air at any one time. Some may produce objectionable odors at very low levels, but many have no noticeable smell. Many VOCs are irritants and can cause headaches, eye, nose and throat irritation and dizziness. Long-term exposure to certain VOCs may lead to chronic diseases or cancer. At high concentrations, some VOCs are toxic.

Indoor air quality in North America is actually worse now than it was a few decades ago thanks to VOC’s like formaldehyde being added to consumer goods. The majority of formaldehyde found indoors originates from building materials, pressed wood products (hardwood plywood wall paneling, particleboard, fiberboard) and furniture made with these pressed wood products. The surprising truth about formaldehyde is that it never stops off-gassing.  That particle board book shelf or kitchen cabinetry made ten years ago is still poisoning the air today.  The best practice is to avoid the source of these VOC’s before they enter your home.

Now back to the tour.   We walk past the framework of a beautiful walnut banquette bench and service station being built for a new restaurant. Further in the back are some sleek white oak tables for another restaurant, these ones finished and waiting for transport. And in the same room are some wood-stain color mock-ups drying for a client. Every piece is exquisitely detailed. There is an especially lovely set of tables and cabinets for a restaurant with very clean geometry and a tightly radiused void which will wrap around a column when it is installed. As a designer who has seen her drawings fabricated with varying degrees of craftsmanship, I have to say it is truly a delight to see the construction of a design done so well.

You can see some of Woodshanti’s work for yourselves in and around San Francisco at Ragazza in San Francisco and most recently at the Tap Room at Coddington Mall in Santa Rosa. You may have already seen their craftsmanship if you took the AIA home tour a few years ago (see photo above).  They were key players in creating that beautiful kitchen.

For projects that require custom cabinets, furniture, or artful wood detailing, I would definitely talk to the professionals at Woodshanti.

Tucked in between the Victorians and the 500 Club in San Francisco’s Mission district is the little workshop slash showroom of ~Meteor Lights~.  I’ve been intrigued by this storefront since the first time I rolled past it, but never knew when it was open or if it was.  Well, it is and it was this week, and what a score of a store to walk into!

Meteor Lights designs and fabricates custom fiberglass drum lampshades, modern pendant light fixtures, and mod acrylic lamp bases in retro, atomic, and mid-century modern styles, bringing classic ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s Americana to any space.  These colorful drum and tiered fiberglass lampshades also look great with streamline moderne, tiki, vintage western, googie, biomorphic, Danish Modern, and mid century-influenced contemporary lighting styles.

–from MeteorLights.com

The shop is literally stacked to the rafters with mid-century style parchment shades in every shape, size and color.  Rob, owner and craftsperson, creates shades to your specified sizes, shapes, and patterns.  These are fiberglass resin parchment shades made from the same material as the original versions in the forties and fifties.  Amazingly, this material can be dyed to match anything from a fabric swatch to a Pantone™ color allowing you to create exactly the look you want, in the shape, size, and quantity you need too – try doing that with vintage!

Shades range from sconces to petite lampshades to pendant fixtures complete with the electrical works.  All of them have the lanyard lacing at the edges that can be as obvious or subdued as you desire.  Play it up for contrast adding a retro or western flavor or keep it simple for a look of mid-century class.  I love the reverse atomic 2-tier shade as a pendant fixture for living or dining room. Add a diffuser panel on the underside, or even a simple silver bowl bulb, and you’ve got a cool pendant or swag light.

Stylistically, these types of shades are an obvious choice where a vintage, or eclectic Americana look is desired.  As a material, though, the fiberglass parchment has a soft, natural-looking glow that could compliment an array of interiors from an Asian-style tea room to an urban industrial loft.

By using the same parchments and similar shape of shade you can easily create a family of classic mid-century lighting and unify an assortment of lamp bases and light fixtures. Meteor Lights makes all shades to order so customizing is standard and incredibly affordable, ranging from about $40 for the sconce shields to $150 for large drum shades.   Made in California!

One of my  absolute favourite showrooms in the city, this is ~Cisco Home~.  Their beautiful sustainable furniture is made right her in California and infinitely customizable.  They recently moved from Potrero Hill to Hayes Valley and are no longer a secret for us designers to keep.  Their blown glass light fixtures and repurposed army surplus pieces show exceptionally well in this beautiful showroom.  Many of their floor samples are in an unbleached linen giving them the feel of artist canvas — yet untouched, but full of potential and organically elegant in and of themselves.

This week I’m working on three outdoor spaces and I’m on the trail for some cool landscaping notions.  One client and I already hit the Alameda Antiques fair to kick off her project (watch for an upcoming post about that), but I’ve also got a few small restaurant clients who want to develop their sidewalk appeal with seating and plants.  Great excuse to get myself back to ~Building REsources~!

I hit the usual garden centers to check out planting options and conventional planters, but while I was on duty in the Bayview neighborhood of San Francisco I wanted to revisit the salvaged material yard off of Third and Cargo.  As I recalled, they still have aisles of doors, windows, and cabinets like this thing, for example.

What was it?  Intriguing!  They are still stored outside – beware the season when shopping for materials here as most of it is stored in the open air.  During the summer it’s totally dry.

A lot of the stuff isn’t affected by the elements, for example there is probably a square mile’s worth of large plate mirrors for the taking.  My favorites, though, are all the deco bathroom fixture suites.  A person could outfit a whole house, easily, with the cute pastel colored enamel and porcelain trios – tub complete with wrap-around apron, pedestal sink, and commode. Refit them with modern water-conserving fitments and you’ll have the most glamorous can in San Fran.

Best reasons to go:

Building Resources’ coolest, most unique, and most compelling offering, though, in my opinion, is their beautiful tumbled glass, tile, and pottery.  Sold by the pound, you can create a dazzling effect with a layer or a mountain of sparkling, translucent, colored or clear pebbles of glass.  Sizes range from pea-sized tempered pieces to larger dollar coin-sized chips in the various glass colors and mélange of broken tile and dishes.  The tumbling takes the sharp edges off so that you can handle it without fear of being cut.  The tempered pieces are the most inviting and fall through the fingers like coarse sand.  Imagine using this in a modern rock garden, an ecosmart fireplace, in a water feature or aquarium, or as a shimmering top layer in a cool white planter…

Hidden Treasures

Of course, places like this never have the same inventory twice.  On this occasion I found some pretty cobalt blue goblets missing the stems.   I want them for my aforementioned residential client.  They’ll hang in wire slings from an ornamental iron gate to cast blue light across her patio alcove during the day and be illuminated by candles from within after dark.  I hope she loves that!

Visit Building REsources if you’re looking for most anything salvaged, but most especially for the tumbled glass – my favorite recycled product yet!

Scout Sustainable Design has officially launched here in San Francisco!  And as its principal and lead interior designer I’m excited to be posting the progress of one of Scout’s first projects here on Sus-out.com.  I hope to post more projects like this with some back story to give an idea of the process of a project and how materials are selected and design decisions are made along the way.

Project Brief

This client needed to create a space in her apartment dedicated to her business activities.  She had the luxury of a dining room that was under-utilized so that’s where we started.

The Goal

This room needed to accommodate a desk, filing, a library of reference material, and have lots of wall space for pinning up drawings, samples, photographs, and images.

The Challenge

The end user of this space is a designer and wanted her office to be fun and vivid, yet she also needed a somewhat neutral backdrop in order to work on color and material palettes for her clients.  Being a rental, she doesn’t have the option of altering the structure or even permanently mounting anything on the walls so all of the design solutions have to be free-standing and removable.

The Solution

The client had some cute and casual dining furniture that we customized and re-used.  This glass table top got a bold two-tone buffalo plaid graphic painted on the back and became a sleek executive desk.  Portions of the graphic were left transparent to keep it feeling light but the red theme is reinforced with a cotton rag rug below.

Some vintage character was brought in with café-style curtains made with a red and green vintage rayon from Urban Burp. We kept the color concentrated in the furniture and textiles with sassy graphics so that the walls could be a neutral without feeling like a compromise.  On the walls is Benjamin Moore’s ben -  low odor, low VOC -  interior latex paint in flat Mocha Cream 995.  It’s neutral and it’s gray, but has a bit of pink in it that really feels rich with all the red.

For pin-up space, we are looking into a natural cork product that comes 48” wide rolls and a dozen colors.  This will be mounted on a FSC-certified plywood backing board (as opposed to applying it directly to the plaster wall) and with some custom metal J-hooks we’ll simply hang our tack board from the existing picture rail.  The cork will help with acoustics in the room too.

Next Steps

I’ll be meeting with one of my carpenter friends to come up with a custom shelving unit for under that window.  My priority is to create a two- or three-piece unit out of salvaged or remnant lumber.  Breaking it into modules will let us make use of smaller pieces of wood and make it a more versatile piece of furniture should the client ever relocate.  Look for that in future posts!

Some Inspiration

I love the look of raw plywood.  It just seems to take all the edge off any design that is threatening to take itself too seriously!  We’ll be using this look as part of the tackboard construction.  I also love this idea of a limitless tacakable wall (see image below), but in my client’s case there is an arched opening into the kitchen on the would-be tack wall.  Carpeting the whole wall with cork would be best on a wall like the one shown here where all edges terminate into an inside corner.  We nixed full wall treatment in favor of a self-supporting idea – more to come on that one…

Potter, Edith Heath started the ~Heath Ceramics~ in the mid-forties with a dedication to timeless design, hand-craftsmanship, and sustainable practices (formerly known as ‘resourcefulness’).  The business was bought in 2003 by husband and wife Robin Petravic and Catherine Bailey.  Their mission was to revitalize the designer-maker legacy established in one of the few remaining mid-century American potteries still in existence today. A true California classic, Heath Ceramics has been creating beautiful tableware and tile since 1948.  I went for a tour of their Sausalito factory recently and fell in love with the company and, of course, the gorgeous ceramics.

I’m always excited to find truly local sources of exquisite design (and it happens all the time here!).  Heath sources their brown clay from Sacramento area and all of the manufacturing is done right here in Northern California by skilled craftspeople, many of whom have been with the company for over 20 years.  One of the things I place a high priority on is the labor that goes into a product – is it local, is it fair, is it skillfully executed?  The human factor in the sustainability of a product must be an equal part of the people-planet-profit equation of business (the triple bottom line). Many skilled hands touch each piece throughout its production and there really was a positive vibe as we walked through Heath’s sun-lit production line.

“The price of our products reflects the actual cost of producing products in a responsible manner. Products manufactured in the United Stated must comply with strict environmental standards and we go further with our stringent recycling and reuse programs. Our staff is fairly compensated, receives full health care benefits, has retirement benefits available and workers compensation coverage etc. We would be the first to agree that it’s an expensive way to produce products, but we also believe that if you’re going to “talk the talk” you need to “walk the walk”…”

-from www.heathceramics.com

They’ve just opened up a new retail store in the San Francisco Ferry Building.  You can check out the store and push off on a ferry ride to tour the factory on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays.  Free and fun!

Bargain scouting:

Every Friday Heath brings out their production seconds for sale for only $6.99 per square foot.  Rummage through stacks of gorgeous, irregular tile for fun or art.  And if you’ve got time to stock pile for an up-coming project and appreciate the beauty of imperfections in a wabi sabi sort of way, this could be the best excuse to come back again and again!

Cool product scouting:

In the firing process of the tile there are larger ceramic “shelves” that are used to hold all the pieces.  These shelves are used over and over again until they start to lose their form.  In the past the exhausted ceramic shelves would be pulverized and given to local farms to add to their soils, but the Heath team found another use for them.  They have begun cutting and glazing them for sale to those who want an uber ecological tile (and can wait it out for the next batch to be retired).  What were we saying about ‘resourcefulness’?  Call the factory to find out more or place your order.

Unless you’re an interior designer or dancer flooring may be as interesting to you as rolled oats; and you likely don’t look at what’s under your feet with a zealous, analytical eye whenever you set foot in a new space.  If you are a designer, however, or you’re thinking about installing or replacing your existing floor, well then you know that there are literally acres of options to sift through.  Let’s break it down, shall we, with a focus on resilient or hard flooring of the sustainable sort.

I went looking for options for a current project that included a kitchen/dining room and new family room in a single story slab-on-grade residence.  The client was considering ~FSC-certified~ walnut or ~Plyboo~ cabinet doors in their kitchen renovation which would set the tone for the rest of the finishes.  Our budget – $4 to $8 per square foot.  Here’s where we started.

FSC Certified Walnut

The ~Forest Stewardship Council’s~ certification on a product assures that the material is from a responsibly managed source.  Available in various sizes as raw lumber, this was the most custom and priciest option on our list but only because the client wanted solid wood.   Walnut is not readily available as a solid flooring option here in Nor Cal so boards would have to be milled adding a cost to our project.  Going with an engineered product – that is, pre-assembled tongue and groove planks with a pressed board body and 1/4” thick solid wood wear layer – would be less expensive.  Engineered floor use less solid lumber because it is only the visible portion of the plank.  It also makes for a fast and easy installation especially because many engineered floors come prefinished saving you the time and potential odor of applying a finish after the floor is installed.

Bamboo

Thanks to products like Smith & Fong’s ~Plyboo~ bamboo is now almost as ubiquitous in homes and businesses as it is in the groves where it grows like a weed regenerating itself every 5 to 6 years.  It’s an excellent material for cabinets, furniture, flooring, anywhere where you would use wood products.  Bamboo will not rot, is a natural termite repellent, and can be bought pre-finished making for a quick and easy installation. It should be noted that certain types of bamboo are not as strong on the floor as others and will show dents and marks, especially in the light colors.  According to one installer, the “Strand” product is the most resilient, being made up of bamboo fibers adhered together with phenolic resin.  Price wise it’s right in the pocket at $5 to $7 per square foot.

Cork

~Cork~ has so many advantages – it’s soft under foot, antifungal, rapidly renewable, absorbs sound, and insulates from a cold slab.  And cork is being given new life with grain, color, and surface treatments that make it feel very contemporary.  Available in engineered planks and glue-down tiles, the tiles are recommended for wet areas.  The cushiony quality of cork does make it vulnerable to dents from heavy furniture or shoes, but wear and tear could be considered part of the patina.

Linoleum

A classic!  How does a material look so hot and new and vintage all at the same time?  Linoleum is a natural sheet flooring made up of linseed oil, rosins, wood flour, jute and ecologically responsible pigments – not to be confused with its bastard cousin that took over the market in the 1940’s made of vinyl.  Linoleum has come back with a vengeance with lots of great graphics and colors.  The ~Forbo~ brand has a residential engineered product called “Click” that installs like any other plank flooring and can actually be used in the kitchen as well, linoleum sheet is recommended for bathrooms.  The engineered version makes it easy to do some awesome pattern without doing any cutting or bonding of the seams.  I’d love to do a giant buffalo plaid or Mondrian graphic.  Installing the sheet material can be tricky and requires heat welded seams so hiring a professional installer is recommended.  Some manufacturers also have a seam adhesive that they tout as saving time and money, but I’ve seen it fail.  Linoleum is one of the least expensive options at $3-4 per square foot.

Some things you need to consider when selecting a flooring material:

• How much traffic it will get
• Floors in bathrooms and sometimes kitchens will need to be impervious
• Sound reduction characteristics
• Softness under foot
• How easy it is to clean

Things to consider when selecting a sustainable material:

• Where the product/material was made/harvested
• How quickly the material regenerates itself
• The energy required to produce it
• Is it ~Greenguard~ certified to assure it meets their standards for indoor air quality?

I had narrowed down the selection of flooring options based on the client’s budget and what I knew they were after, but there are loads of sustainable options out there to fit any aesthetic.  Notice how salvage and reclaimed lumber weren’t on this list – I knew it wasn’t the direction this client wanted to go.  Check out ~The Green Home Center~ in San Francisco for some leads on all kinds of finishes and materials including locally reclaimed fir flooring for cheap!  Also visit ~Earth Source Forest Products~ for FSC wood products and ~Plyboo~. And next time you walk into a room remember to look down!

I used to have this favorite breakfast spot.  It was a hole in the wall with rumpus room-style wood paneling, stacking chairs, and a dusty dried flower arrangement at the register – nice touch.  Not the sort of place that has write-ups, ads, or even a sign visible from the street that would let you know it existed.

A friend took me there one cold morning, a perfect occasion for what I thought would be greasy spoon breakfast, and initiated me into an enviable club of those in the know.  We were greeted and seated by the sweet lady owner and handed menus.  There were pancakes and omelettes, the usual stuff, and a random house special – Wor Won Ton. What?  It came highly recommended by them what brung me so that’s what we ordered.  When the monstrous bowls arrived and I took my first slurp and, “Waaaaw”, angels sang.  The stuff was unbelievable!  And only five bucks per!  Why didn’t they have a line of people down the street waiting for their taste of this heavenly soup?

I raved about the place to anyone and everyone – friends, family, anyone whose stomach rumbled in my earshot and the place started getting busier.  I started having to wait in line to get my weekly ritual.  At its peak, I had to phone in my order and slurp it at home.

There’s a lesson here – when you discover something incredible, unique, and special, for Peet’s sake, keep it to yourself!

I’m totally breaking my own rule for this one.  Ladies and gentlemen, I bring to you ~Urban Burp~.

This retail fabric gem of a showroom is tucked away, just out of view, right on Columbus Avenue in San Francisco.  Owner Electra Skilandat’s collection of vintage (and soon to be vintage) fabrics and accessories goes back to the Art Deco era and spans to the not so distant past.

Part of the appeal of vintage anything is that it can’t be found just anywhere making it that much more thrilling when you do find it!  And though there was no concept of “sustainable” materials when most of these fabrics were produced, I’m including them in my scouting as a kind of reclaimed find.  These fabrics were either leftovers, deadstock, or forgotten fodder in someone’s sewing room.  Their old threads, our new treasures!

I came in to the store with one thing on my mind – barkcloth:

But that is just one segment of the store’s offerings. If you’re looking for some sophisticated historical pieces, she’s got selections from:

• ~Knoll~
• ~Kirk Brummel~ of ~Brunschwig & Fils~
• ~Maharam~ (from their own design collection)
• ~Grandma Moses~ originals
• ~Schumacher~
• ~Waverly~ and
• ~Marcel Boussac~ who opened Maison Dior
• ~Verner Panton~ famous for the quintessential1960’s op art patterns

If you’re more interested in a particular era she’s got that too:

• 1920’s chintzes

• 1930’s and 40’s shantung and pongees
• 1930’s to 50’s barkcloth, of course

• Mid-century Modern
• High Modern satins (check out the video, I can imagine this fabric as drapes in a super stylish ~Kurosawa~ film)

• 1960’s ~Lurex~
• and 1970’s wow stuff

She’s got ~Kvadrat~ and ~Hallingdahl~ wools.  There are tweeds, frisees and matte lasses, shantung and dupioni silks, pongees, rayons, nylons, and damasks.  Some of these big bold prints make beautiful art pieces simply stretched and framed.

Along with the fabrics she’s got a nice selection of vintage clothing patterns and an extensive catalog of quilting patterns that span the sixties to the eighties.

There’s so much to take in while you’re in ~Urban Burp~ it really helps that Electra is so extremely knowledgeable about her wares.   This is my first stop when I restore a vintage upholstered piece and I’m sure I’m not the only one.  The phone number should be on the cell phone of any set, interior, or fashion designer with a penchant for vintage charm and style.

By the way, it wasn’t barkcloth, but I bought that crazy shantung for drapes.  Hey, there’s a limited supply of the stuff – I figure I’d better keep something to myself!

On January 1^st of this year (2010) a new version of ~Title 24~ came into effect.  I’m working on residential lighting right now so that’s what I zoomed in on.

In general, it looks like the new standards have attempted to close any loopholes that existed where, previously, people would reconfigure their lighting set-ups or add fixtures after inspection.  The new rules will count things like reconfigurable tracks or covered J-boxes against you giving them the same weight as a low-efficacy fixture regardless of whether it is or not (like in the case of the reconfigurable track).  It also looks like they have new standards for the components of dimming/motion sensor/programmable switching systems.

Some key points about Title 24 lighting:

- from 2008 Residential Compliance Manual August 2009

• Kitchens. At least half the installed wattage of luminaires in kitchens must be high efficacy. However, some lighting installed inside a cabinet may not be included in the wattage calculation.

• Bathrooms, Garages, Laundry Rooms, Closets and Utility Rooms. All fixtures must either be high efficacy or must be controlled by a vacancy sensor. Closets that are less than 70 sq. ft. are exempt from this requirement.

• Other Rooms. This applies only to rooms that are not kitchens, bathrooms, garages, laundry rooms, closets, or utility rooms. All installed luminaires must either be high efficacy or must be controlled by a vacancy sensor or dimmer.

• Outdoor Lighting. All luminaires mounted to the building or to other buildings on the same lot must be high efficacy luminaires or must be controlled by a motion sensor in combination with a photocontrol, astronomical time clock, or energy management control system (EMCS).

• Interior Common Areas of Multifamily Buildings. All interior luminaires in the common areas of multifamily buildings must either be high efficacy or must be controlled by an occupant sensor.

Of course, there are a few hundred pages in the Manual detailing the ins and outs and exemptions, all available in the marked or unmarked version on the ~California Energy Commission~ website.  Now I know we’re all grown-ups who are deeply committed to understanding the guidelines, due diligence and all that, but do me a favour, love — do not read Title 24 with a glass of wine in had or in a reclined position, or god forbid, both.  Nuff said.

Walking into the ~Restoration Timber~ San Francisco showroom is like walking into a vintage lumber boutique. Every square foot of flooring is dense, uniquely aged wood.  There’s a pagoda of massive old growth beam construction that could have had a parallel existence as a catapult.  It stands tall as the centerpiece in the open two-storey space and alludes to the loft space above, where ever more samples await.  This is where designers, home-owners, architects come to select premium vintage wood that is still abundant enough to be milled to specification.  I find it pretty cool that used wood from a torn down agricultural structure is now considered primo material.

What they offer:

As one would infer from the showroom display, the majority of what comes through ~Restoration Timber’s~ mills goes into making flooring: solid tongue and groove planks and engineered tongue and groove (for a lesser chance of warping and greater efficiency in the solid material), as well as doors, cabinetry, and custom furniture – anything that would have solid wood construction. About a quarter of their business is in old growth solid beams, the big stuff that’s now off-limits to logging.

Where it comes from:

What you see in the showroom comes from one of two main sources: reclaimed or salvaged.

Reclaimed means the wood was used for a previous purpose.  It comes mostly from barns in the Midwest – Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Ohio.  There’s an occasional industrial building scouted as well.  The structures are dismantled and the material sent to one of two mills in Wisconsin & Pennsylvania to be prepped for their next use.  Milling is done to the specifications of the client – amazingly customizable for a reclaimed material.

…who else gets calls from Canadian woodsmen about a downed tree? For real.

Salvaged wood is from trees found standing dead or fallen in the forest, or structurally compromised in urban areas.  This source is a lot less predictable and comes onto ~Restoration Timber’s~ radar through the many contacts they’ve made over their 10 years in this business.  And it’s a seemingly Twin Peaks-esque network of resources – no Log Lady (that was mentioned, anyway), but who else gets calls from Canadian woodsmen about a downed tree?  For real.

So, why so many vacant barns?

According to Mike Wilson, part owner and a native Midwesterner, the typical size of the American farm has changed radically since the late 1800’s when many of these barns were built.  What were once many small farms over time were consolidated into a handful of massive farms – the average size morphing from a few acres to a few thousand acres, leaving the remnants of the small family farm standing vacant and unneeded.

Sustainability Story:

Many of these barns were built 125 years ago with a projected life span of 50 to 75 years.  They were outdated when farmers moved from horse to tractor power and were neglected when farm parcels were grouped into larger and larger farms.  Now landowners are paying taxes and insurance for the dilapidated structures – taking them down, returning the site to bare earth is a cost savings for the owner.   Reclaiming the wood keeps usable material out of the landfills, chippers, and incinerators, but also stimulates business around a sustainable practice.  The whole idea is a very timely meshing of current sustainability ethos, high-end design desires, and domestic business stimulus.  ~Restoration Timber’s~ lumber is also certified by the ~FSC~.  Bear in mind wood being reclaimed and milled in the Midwest for a project in Northern California is also being shipped 2000 to 3000 miles across the country – that’s outside of our 500-mile radius in Northern California.

~Restoration Timber~ considers itself a service industry.  They will help homeowners, architects, designers, and contractors hammer out a specification for material and get them samples to approve.  Provide them with a cut list and you will have yourself some incredible historic wood. I can’t help but feel reverence for this material. Trees grew more slowly in the old forests as they were more tightly packed and all had to compete for water, nutrients, and sunlight. That slow growth made for a denser grain and an intense quality that sets it apart from new wood.  There should really be wood sommeliers for treasures like these.

Site-seeing:

You can see some of Restoration Timber’s reclaimed wood installed around San Francisco at ~Urban Outfitters~ and ~Anthropologie~ (wall paneling and flooring), ~The Alembic~ (flooring and bar siding), ~The Ecology Center of San Francisco~, and in the bar at the new Hilton.  Also check out some of the samples of wood and workmanship they’ve got lying around their showroom.  Square dowel joinery and hand-hewn boards abound!