Craigslist Dreamer? Looks like my interior wall treatment idea isn't new

[M A V I C]

http://seattle.craigslist.org/see/mat/2819854199.html

Apparently my idea of using some sort of weathered wood for an interior wall covering is not a new idea. It's so trendy in this area that "reclaimed" wood is hard to find, and when it's found it's worth almost as much as new stuff.

Apparently it's so trendy that people are tearing down barns in the midwest and shipping the wood to Seattle.

[Racer X]

Not to be a jerk, but you didn't know this? All the old abandoned structures around Cle Ellum and Ellensburg dissapeared years ago. Any idea what a 3"x12"x24' is worth when re-sawn? Distressed and reclaimed wood is the "in" thing.

[M A V I C]

No, I honestly didn't know this. Having barely enough money for the house payment for a while, I wasn't paying attention to trendy upgrades.

I did find some wood that's a good price, but it's 2" thick and would need to cut it in half... 8" wide.

[GGD]

Looks like some rich guy in your area started this trend.

AR: With your populist sensibilities, how do you justify doing houses for extremely wealthy people, in fact Bill Gates, one the richest men in the world?

JC: Look what we got out of Gates. For one thing, we got the world's first heavy-timber-recycling sawmill. Did you know that? Bill wanted the best quality wood in the world and wanted us to look at a nearby forest and see which trees we wanted to cut down. Well, this was at the height of the Spotted Owl crisis here in the Northwest. There was no way I was going to cut down oak. As luck would have it, that very weekend I met this guy, Max Talbert, out of Duluth, who's a salvaged-lumber salesman, and he says, "Jim, I think you should build Gates's house out of salvaged lumber." So my partner, Peter Bohlin, and I got a couple of samples and proposed to Bill that he set up a sawmill for salvaged lumber. Bill created GR Plume & Company and funded it to the tune of a couple million. It was the first heavy-timber-recycling sawmill in the world.

http://archrecord.construction.com/peopl...tler-2.asp

[OWC Jamie]

My SIL did her whole kitchen even making her own cabinets of reclaimed wood 30 years ago.
IMO, it looks like :censor: but some people claim to really like it.

[Grateful11]

If it's like most barns around here it's either eat up with Termites or Powder Post Beetles.

Extreme Powder Post Beetle damage


Around here they're tearing down many of the old Cotton Mills and recycling the huge
timbers inside and the bricks on the outside.

[mikebw]

I have heard you can only get the tighter grain patterns from old growth trees, which of course are all cut down now and the lumber is only available in reclaimed form.

[Filliam H. Muffman]

This Old House was doing shows on reclaimed wood at least five years ago.

[evilrobot]

[3d]

Some guy on NYC Craigslist is selling reclaimed bowling alley pine for $16 sq/ft. Yikes!