For the purposes of this book, reclaimed wood refers to timber predominantly cut from old-growth forests, originally used to build structures in the nineteenth and the early twentieth century and subsequently recovered as lumber to be reused.

For us, the term evokes both a sense of loss—the ancient forests are now largely gone—and a sense of preservation and renewal. The forests reemerge through the demolition process, bearing the marks and color of age and wear, and with a story to tell.

To help guide us, we can distinguish reclaimed wood in several ways: by the age of the wood and its sylvan origins, by the species of tree it came from, and by the type of structure the wood was originally used for. These three elements not only help account for the specific visual qualities of each wood—color, grain, texture, and markings—they also provide meaning in the form of history and sustainability. Together, these elements constitute the allure of reclaimed woods.

First turning our attention to age, we use these broad categories:

Old growth or virgin refers to wood that was cut from a mature, naturally established forest, seemingly untouched by human intervention. The lumber from these forests has highly valued qualities—it can be massive, incredibly dense, richly hued, and often all heartwood, free of the lighter outer sapwood that moves water and minerals. These forests, composed of trees that were often hundreds of years old, were plundered, from the late eighteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, to build much of the United States. As a great deal of these old-growth forests have been cut, and nearly all are, thankfully, now off-limits to logging, reclaiming these woods from buildings is the only way not only to access the timber’s unique physical characteristics, but also to preserve an essential element of the American landscape. With so many older structures having incorporated what is also now termed antique wood, old-growth timber makes up a large volume of reclaimed lumber stock.

Second growth refers to the trees that grew after the old-growth forest had been heavily cut. These trees, too, were used throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but tended to be younger at the time of logging than old-growth trees, often fifty to more than one hundred years old. Their different growing conditions and less mature ages are inscribed in the figures and grains of the woods—growth rings are broader and less numerous, colors are more muted. Distinguishing old growth from second growth is not always easy, and we sometimes turn from nature to human history for the answers—the nail type, surface patina, saw mark pattern, and age of the structure can help us date the original wood. Second-growth wood, also referred to as vintage, is a valuable source of reclaimed material. It tells a story of natural renewal after the intense logging of an earlier era.

Plantation-grown wood comes from trees that were raised to be harvested, just like any other crop. Managed tree farms emerged as a response to the intense logging of the old-growth forests in the late 1800s. First cultivated as saplings in a nursery and then replanted in an artificial forest, these trees are subject to chemical treatments and cut at a relatively young age, and therefore don’t develop the dense fibers and complex roots systems of the old-growth trees. As a result, the woods’ characteristics are strikingly different from those of old-growth or second-growth woods—paler colors, more frequent knots, and wide, evenly spaced growth rings that resemble the rings of a target at a shooting range. However, these woods have an essential role, primarily in providing wood for stick-frame construction, and also as a necessary alternative, now that old-growth and second-growth logging has largely ceased. A reclaimed-lumber company may increasingly stock reclaimed woods that originated on plantations, but, at this moment, in this book, we are chiefly interested in celebrating and preserving the remaining old-growth woods.

New wood refers herein to a whole slew of material, from shipping pallets and scaffolding planks to a range of manmade boards like plywood. While we occasionally see these woods at the yard, they are generally recycled as mulch or biofuel. Neither these woods nor woods reclaimed from downed trees and urban logging are part of our project. There is clearly value in the woods’ reuse, but they are part of a trade different from ours.

There are many ways that this salvaged and often remanufactured product expresses its value. Reclaimed wood—a natural product—represents a backlash against living in a society where it has become hard to distinguish what is natural and sustainable. With a lot of new wood, there is very little character to draw upon: knots and maybe heartwood and sapwood. Reclaimed wood offers many more dimensions with which to work.

Textures and patterns and tones speak to the wood’s life in the forest and in human society, whether it was a threshing floor or a vinegar tank or a factory joist. There is evidence of its place in the history of technology—the cut nail versus a round nail, for instance. Say, “This is wood that was used in a barn,” and you immediately call up all sorts of associations with the world of barns. It’s story can even be specific to a site or an era, like the Edison maple on this page.

People often search to describe something special in old wood beyond its material features—an aura that speaks to qualities that don’t meet the eye. Closely connected with this is an instinct to rescue neglected wood and put it back to work in modern design.

The character of reclaimed wood is revealed through its surface features, each a clue to its species, age, and use (or abuse). In these visual codes, we can read its story. Here is an overview of common markings.

1
Nail Holes
Nail holes are often ringed with ebonized marks that result from iron dissolving into the surrounding wood fibers. These stains can take the form of brushstrokes or stay tight, as though squeezed out with an eyedropper.

2
Stress cracks
Splits and end checks develop from stresses and seasonal wood movement. The process of expansion and contraction causes micro explosions of wood fibers.

3
Knots
Knots are remnants of encased branches. Their varied forms, sizes, and checking can relate to species and growth. Sometimes a knot may “blow out” or be loose at the perimeter, (as seen here), a sign of a branch that died long before the tree was felled. Knots in wood are often maligned but also express its nature.

4
Impacts
Dents can appear, perhaps the work here of a few drunk hammer blows.

5
Gouges
Gouges signal recent nail removal and may be small or doozies of distress.

6
Grain
The pattern on the surface that results from the configuration of the wood’s fibers. Common grain patterns include vertical grain and spiral grain; open or coarse grain; and end grain.

7
Figure
Figure is sometimes interchangeable with grain, but here describes the general appearance of the wood, inclusive of knots, patterns, and other natural features that appear when reclamation shakes off the old surface.

8
Color or tone
The warm browns and silver grays often found in reclaimed wood result from a range of factors, including biological processes in surface cells, the penetration of water bearing minerals and other chemical agents, age, and exposure to sunlight. The white powdery areas are remnants of old lime-based whitewash.

9
Insect tracings
Termites, carpenter ants, and numerous other insects can leave precision holes and other tracings from their headlong rush into a tree.

10
Fungus
Wood may last forever in a dry, cool place. But when wood is moist, fungal decay can set in, leaving holes, rot, or stain on the face of a board.

11
Texture
Texture varies across species and over time and conditions. The feathered texture here is characteristic of white pine. The surface texture of eastern hemlock, on the other hand, is brittle and splintery.

12
Saw marks
Saw-mark patterns indicate the type of mill used and can help in dating wood.

To save and salvage seems basic to human nature. Early civilizations undoubtedly left little to waste. Cave dwellers must have tossed broken clubs into the fire. The Bible exhorted: “Beat your swords into plowshares.”

So while reclaimed wood is not a new thing, our way of using it—that is, treating it as a choice rather than a necessity—is.

The names for it vary. It can be called “used” or “repurposed,” “scrap” and “salvaged.” In the industry, many names have avoided the suggestion of sustainability and reuse, at least directly, in favor of “antique,” “vintage,” and “virgin growth.”

For hundreds of years, a popular term was “secondhand.” It suggested the passing of an object from one human hand to another—central to the idea of reclaimed wood—but demoted it to second.

To the new lumber dealer of the early twentieth century, old wood was both respected and a nuisance. In 1919, the Southern Lumberman, a trade journal, reported, “the second-hand lumber proposition is something that cannot be waved aside.” Mid-century American ads start to list “used lumber”; any glamour has been stripped from the mass-produced commodity. By then, old lumber was being recovered in large volume and offered at a discount for rough work like lining sewers. Builders also incorporated used lumber when new became a critical war resource.

After the war, something else was starting to happen. In the 1950s and early 1960s, magazines like House Beautiful featured stories of homeowners who found “beauty in the junkyard,” with profiles of interiors that included recovered wood and other materials. Some architects bridging modern and vernacular traditions, like A. Hays Town in Louisiana (this page) and Jonathan Foote in the Rocky Mountains (this page), were also beginning to incorporate salvaged wood.

The use of scrap in art goes back to the collages of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque in 1910. A quarter century later, there were the combines of Robert Rauschenberg, John Chamberlain’s welded automobile parts, and Carl Andre’s minimalist reclaimed timber sculptures. (“The wood was better before I cut it than after,” Andre said. “I did not improve it in any way.”) Art had pointed to old things’ value as symbols and elevated their aged surfaces.

The origins of today’s interest in reclaimed wood can also be traced to the counterculture of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Hippie activists launched voluntary recycling centers and co-ops and scoured used lumber yards and abandoned barns, to build and live as cheaply as possible. Books like The Whole Earth Catalog (1968) or Shelter by Lloyd Kahn (1970) spread the word.

The growing movement for historical preservation, spurred by events like the destruction of New York’s Penn Station (1963), may have also been a factor, as even a raw building material from a demolished structure could be seen to have provenance.

The terms “secondhand” and “used lumber” no longer worked. Wood was being salvaged and remanufactured, which explains how the term reclaimed wood came into use. It could be made to look rustic or refined, and in the process the history of a specific site was being preserved through modern design. This was something new in the late twentieth century.

Some of the woods had been around for more than a thousand years. They’d come from virgin forests and carried the allure of old buildings. It’s a wonder that it took so long for the name to be reclaimed.