Green Furniture Made From Salvaged & Reclaimed Wood
Old Growth Douglas Fir
Our Reclaimed Douglas-Fir is recovered from historical buildings built in Oregon around the turn of the century. The best architectural salvage in our area is coming from buildings built before 1930. We scout for “True Dimensional” wood because each board was specifically cut in nominal dimensions. Unlike the big box store lumber we are familiar with these days, this reclaimed building material is very valuable and sought after due to it’s antiquity, availability, and premium grade. To preserve the integrity of the lumber, the materials have to be deconstructed carefully and strategically. Every floor joist and wall support is tediously de-nailed one by one. It is worth the value and hard work in the end. This high quality timber is hard to find today. We never know what we are going to uncover in this business, but that’s half the fun! Every piece takes on its own identity, revealing its history through weathered rough hewn saw marks and blackened mineral stains left behind from old rusty square nails. These giving conifer trees have served multiple purposes before being resurrected into functional art. Milbourn Woodwork’s furniture holds tremendous history and strength, by capturing recycled energy, from the eternal spirit of Oregon’s old-growth forests.
Oregon White Oak
Our Salvaged Oregon White Oak is sustainably sourced and FSC certified from a small mill in the Willamette Valley. Just like our Old Growth Douglas Fir forests of the Pacific Northwest, we once had ancient stands of white oak trees between the areas of Portland and Eugene. Over the course of a century, our native white oak meadows have been decimated down to a very small percentage to make way for farming and agriculture. In modern times, we are seeing major growth in the Willamette Valley wine industry and surrounding urban growth boundaries. We want to spread awareness about the impact of our footprint moving forward. We are passionate about conserving these native heritage trees. Selective harvesting instead of clear cutting has proven to be successful and beneficial. Unfortunately, the lumber from these trees never had much value as a materials resource. Oregon was in the epicenter of the most plentiful building materials of its time. The oak forests were often overlooked, clear cut, and readily made into fuel for cooking and heating. We plan to work toward helping implement a plan and market for this particular tree species by planting and reforestation, with the contribution in mind that we will be benefiting future generations with a valuable natural resource by introducing millions of board feet of high quality lumber. It’s a waiting game, but during that time, the trees are doing what they do best, absorbing sunlight, rain, carbon, and looking pretty awesome. Great for our environment, economy, and world as a whole.
