SOURCING and CHOOSING OLDE WOOD --

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Why "olde" wood?

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Why "olde"? Old is too common. Olde means old but with flare and style. Olde wood from Colonial times in New England provoke images of Ye Olde Shoppe and Olde Tymes from yesteryear. The Barndoorist grew up in Concord, MA where everything revolved around history (the battle of Lexington and Concord and Minute Men with fife and drum). Olde just fits. It's our thing. 

 

What is the ideal wood a Barndoorist uses to make a rustic barn door when a Barndoorist is Barndooring?

Northshore Barn Doors sources aged pines in New England. We have used online sources, word of mouth, local suppliers and wood enthusiasts. We have worked with builders, homeowners, and even pasting notes on projects of demolition and renovation when driving by a construction site.

Aged wood could be stacked with ‘sticks’ between boards (like in the picture above) and if left outside, this is one of the best ways to save it for later use. Air can travel between the stacks allowing the wood to naturally age and stay dry over time and it will not rot and allow for mold if those saving it take the time to stack in this way.

Our ideal boards for making most of our interior rustic and semi-rustic barn doors are:

Aged pine boards that are a true 3/4” to 1” thick.

Between 6-9 feet long.

Between 6-12” wide.

If you have boards like these that are stacked with sticks between layers, we would love to acquire them when we are looking for stock.

Ideal wood can also be from inside stacks and these could be piled without sticks. They could be leaning vertically inside an olde barn or shed, and they could even be in mixed-matched piles inside such a place. In some cases, someone is selling a property and cleaning out an olde barn and there have been boards like these inside that have been there for decades or even centuries. Some may even be attached to inside walls and when we see these, we can pull them and help you clean that space out be acquiring such wood if you are doing that right now.

Aged pine could be as “new” as sawmill wood that has sat out for years, and it could be wood from a renovation or demolition where someone has taken the time to save boards pulled from the site and stacked them.

If olde boards have nails in them still, that’s not always a bad thing. If leaving them in there saves you time or money and you can pass that savings onto us if we pay you for it, that works for us!

If olde boards have a lacquer on one side, such as aged wide floorboards, these often work for many of our projects too.

If olde boards have cracks, splits, knots, and other blemishes on them, that is often just what we are looking for! If there is a little bit of rot at the ends, that’s often fine too. We can work the boards for our needs back in our workshop once we load and haul them.

We certainly can and have taken, say, whole walls of barns apart board by board. Leaving the structure in place, we can remove boards and take those. We have taken boards off the insides of homes and from floors and sub floors or out of attics. We have climbed up to second levels of spaces inside barns or sheds to remove piles of wood, and we have taken boards from heaps pulled off and tossed in piles. But these are human-scale things that we are capable of doing. And so I would rather offer money to do this and have someone else take the whole building down than to be enticed to remove an entire structure. We have used beams and large planks for projects but we have limited space for everything in our workshop and so we currently do not need a whole barn. Just the board style we love the most.

What else do we like?

Olde beams...the ones with notches or thick 6x6, 7x7, 8x8 posts.

Planks that could be a true 2’ thick or 3” thick or even 4” thick.

We can take many longer boards up to 16’ depending on the situation.

Some older floor boards depending on age and any coating on one side, and type of wood (pine, Southern Yellow Pine, Douglass Fir, etc).

3/4” plywood sheets or large sections that could have been used for temporary forms or in other building uses depending on quality and effort to remove and reuse.

Some cuts of new trim stock or 2x4, 2x stock from building sites that would otherwise end up in a dumpster—depending on quality and effort to remove and reuse.

If your wood was stacked outside and there are not sticks between boards, we have to check them more thoroughly as there is likely rot and mold between them. Sometimes you get lucky, but wood left out like this too long kind of becomes useless. If you plan to reuse or resell such wood, be sure to stack it either inside or with sticks betwene boards. Covering with a tarp when outside might work for some small piles but usually, this too will eventually get wet over time and then end up with even more mold. Mold is no good.

If it rains or snows and your wood is wet when we take it, that can be ok. We would rather come when it’s not raining or when we do not have to remove tons of snow to access boards or access the lot where they are stacked, but wet boards will dry in our shop. We just have to check more thoroughly to make sure the wood is right because it’s harder to tell when its wet after a storm.

Some of the most perfect “scores” of olde wood:

Early on in my time as a Barndoorist, there was a woman just off Rte 95 North in Maine who posted the best ad we have ever seen. It said something like, “We are removing a large barn on our property and so for the next three weeks, those seeking old boards, beams, doors, planks, stone, etc can come visit and remove what they wish to buy. We will negotiate pricing and you can haul away.” When the lady’s timeframe was up, all she had left was a few piles of scrap and some of the foundation. It cost her not very much to get that removed, but she thanked about 20 different people who had come, myself included, and she had even served us all iced tea when we worked in her yard on those summer days.

We had a customer in Newburyport whose builder had pulled out olde boards from their 1850s home renovation and stacked them in the garage. We came and took it all to the workshop. We then build them doors and installed them. We negotiated pricing whereas the stock they sold us and the doors we sold them worked out for everyone!

We worked with an Ipswitch builder who renovated an early 1700s property. Some of the boards he arranged for us to come grab were over 2 feet wide! These rare finds cannot be beat! We made doors and installed them when the properties were fully renovated, and provided some other matching beams for mantles he wanted for some rooms in the newly finished spaces. We worked out a negotiated deal that made everyone win.

A New Hampshire friend of a friend was selling his propery and needed the barn emptied. We brought our trailer a few times and removed many boards stacked vertically inside, and many in piles too. In this case we did help remove other pieces that he could not find the time to dispose of, and most of these were small scraps and pieces we cannot use under a certain size. But he also had beams and thicker planks that we could use for other projects. He even had many tools for sale. It’s hard to say no to these toys!

Another New Hampshire land owner was going to demo a delapitated home from the 1700s and we were able to come take anything we wanted from the wooden structure in a certain time frame.

There have been other greats, and a lot of good people who just hope the boards go to someone who has the passion for using these historic pieces. Many builders who renovate locallly pull olde boards out of a room and contact us to remove them if we can use them hoping we can make use of something like this. What comes around goes around and we have referred others to these folks to help generate more business for everyone.

Craigs list and Marketplace have been great resources too. We have met a lot of wonderful people getting rid of a lot of wonderful things! We do it too!

What we have seen, wanted, but cannot really do:

There have been many ads out there over the years that say something like, “Free Barn Wood! $1… You can have this entire building if you take it down and remove it”

People putting this out there are nice folks who are being practical. We all appreciate that kind of thing these days! We certainly appreciate it when a friend sends us such an ad too.

However, when calling the folks who place such ads, I have often run into someone who says something like, “Well. I just thought some nice local handyman could use these but we have to get rid of the structure and would like it all gone in a day…”

The problem is, in most cases, a ‘nice local handyman’ cannot do all that. Usually, a large outfit from the city is going to show up with a crew and some large equipment and rip the place up and salvage boards they can later turn around and sell for exorbitant prices. It’s not some ‘nice person’ giving it to some other ‘nice person.’ It’s ruthless. And so, what we have usually run into is that the person offering this sort of thing does not target the little guy.

Coming to your site to remove an entire building often takes more than just one person. It often takes more than just one truck and trailer, which is what we have. It often involves the use of heavy equipment, ladders, heights, risk of falling or having something fall on you, or the person doing it is a well-seasoned and rather agile individual who can run up and down walls and on rickety roofs without issue. We are a couple of guys over 50 who make doors, but we are not in that business.

We do not really have a use for hardwoods such as oak. We have done some projects with maple, oak, mahogany, etc, but generally speaking, our prime use involves aged pine. We have used some newer smooth surface stock but our primary need is aged wood. Smooth surface stock is less our style. We have worked with some tongue and groove stock or skinnier width boards in some rare occaions, but this is less our style.

New wood from lumber yards and home centers is also less our style and need. This needs to be left to dry for longer periods and it involves a less rustic style for door building which is off brand for our business and passion.

What we do not want:

Boards with lead paint. Sorry, nope! Cannot do it! Same for creosote or coated tar (tar paper may be ok)

We have been in situations where a person giving us or selling us wood asks us to help remove boards as part of the deal. For example, they will give us the wood or give us a deal if we take all of this or that. This is great, but if the wood has lead paint in it, we end up spending more time, effort, and cost to turn around and be forced to find yet another time-consuming way to dispose of it later on, and carrying and transporting and handling wood is a laborious process as it is.

Why not lead paint?

Coating it with the products available takes time and cost to do that.

Cutting a veneer off of the side with the paint takes time, effort, and risk of hitting nails and getting lead dust in the air when using our large rip saw. Blades for our biggest saw cost a lot more than the smaller ones we use in other table saws at the workshop.

trying to trim or sand off lead paint is hazardous to everyone, and trying to throw these boards away is an issue too.

We cannot put boards with lead paint into a customer’s space because of insurance and other reasons.

Please do not include lead-coated boards when we come to get your wood. We all have to spend the time to separate this out. Our recommendation to anyone trying to dispose of this wood, no matter how olde or cool the good side is, is to either find your own projects to use it on, or to contact someone who deals with hazardous materials and ask for ways to do so with those professionals. Again, we are a couple of guys over 50 who make doors, but we are not in that business.

Some logistics:

If you are giving or selling olde wood, we appreciate your doing so! We can negotiate pricing when chatting about when and where to meet up, and bring cash, or Venmo, checks, money orders, or barter in other ways. We typically come with the pickup truck and trailer and so we need to detailed directions and a means to text and call when on the way if needed. We need to be able to access the site and get in and out, and not end up in deep mud or poison ivy. If you have pets or small children, it may be best to not have them near the moving of long, heavy boards especially if they have nails in them. And we would perfer to not have to move other stuff to get to the wood piles. We certainly love to help and we may even be interested in other things you may be unloading when we come, depending on the need and space and time available.

Thank you for reading and we hope to keep the good vibes going when using and reusing these unique boards and elements found only in New England!

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