The Craftsmanship Behind Reclaimed Barnwood Furniture: A Peek into our Process
Based in Fredericktown, in Knox County Ohio – Unique Custom Furniture has been designing and building unique custom furniture products from reclaimed barnwood since the mid 1990’s. As a family-owned business we began collecting barnwood from the many old barns located in Knox County and surrounding areas in Ohio. We started to refine and finish the wood, and we were amazed at how beautiful and unique the old barnwood could look when finished. This was long before there was a barnwood furniture industry. Our initial efforts in selling reclaimed barnwood furniture revolved around attending furniture shows and building up an interest in the products. With every furniture show we would attend we almost always would end up selling all of the furniture in our booth. We used the capital from these furniture shows to continually reinvest in the business and grow our capabilities to where we are today.
Finding Barnwood to Make Unique Custom Furniture
In the early days of Unique Custom Furniture, we would travel around Knox County and surrounding areas of Ohio and look for old barns from which we would be able to salvage the wood. As our retail business grew we realized we had to expand beyond harvesting the wood ourselves. We now use several trusted sources who provide us with barnwood. We still have a resource locally for Ohio barnwood, but we now also have resources in the Appalachia area as well as North Carolina and Tennessee where we source chestnut barnwood.
At Unique Custom Furniture we specialize in building furniture with 100 – 200 year old reclaimed chestnut and oak barnwood. We can also source other wood species if a customer has a special request.
The Process of Building Furniture from Reclaimed Barnwood
There is an involved process in the building of unique custom furniture from barnwood. After we source the wood, it is sent to a kiln for drying for between 2 and 4 weeks. After kiln drying the wood needs to be processed. We have a trusted partnership with an Ohio Amish wood specialist who processes the kiln dried wood. They will plane the wood, straight line it, clean the wood by removing the dust and nails and gets the wood ready for our craftsmen to build furniture. Once the processed wood is in our shop we clean the wood a little more and then cut the pieces for the furniture. When the pieces are ready, we take them into the sanding room to sand everything down. From here, we’ll take the pieces into our finishing room where we finish all of the pieces and assemble them into the final product. Once the final product passes our quality inspection it is ready for blanket wrap, white glove delivery to the customer.
Custom Designed or Stock Furniture
At Unique Custom Furniture we have been building furniture for many years. We have produced many custom designed pieces for customers, and this continues to be a big part of what we do. However, we also have learned what our “best sellers” are, and we strive to keep those top 10 to 15 furniture products in inventory for quick turnaround to customers.
Why You Should Buy from Unique Custom Furniture
There are many choices now from which you can purchase reclaimed barnwood furniture. At Unique Custom Furniture we have been doing it for a long time. We have a unique aesthetic look to our furniture, and we have refined our furniture making process to produce beautiful, heirloom furniture pieces.
There are not a lot of businesses who are doing what we are doing here at Unique Custom Furniture. A lot of furniture products are over marketed, over sold, made overseas and often don’t even use real reclaimed hardwood. Our furniture is hand crafted by skilled artisans from genuine 100 – 200 year old reclaimed American barnwood. In many ways, you are buying a piece of American history.
Visit our online furniture store and browse our unique reclaimed barnwood furniture products.
