Reclaimed Barn Wood, Inside and Out

It is the right question to ask about any salvaged material, and worth putting to whoever is quoting you. Powderpost beetles and other wood borers can live in old hardwood for years. Treatment methods differ and they are not equivalent — kiln heat, for instance, is effective but hard on the wood, and on large sections it causes checking and warping that defeats the point of using timber that size. Ask what has been done to the specific stock you are buying, and ask to see it before it goes up.

Per board foot, usually yes, and there is more waste. What you are paying for is old-growth timber that is no longer harvested and the extra handling salvaged stock needs before it can go indoors. For a feature wall or a mantel the quantities are small enough that the premium is manageable. For a whole house it is a real budget decision — and that is often where aging new timber makes more sense: the same look, in sizes we can actually source, without hunting for another barn.

Yes, and it is where it came from. Exterior use wants different stock than interior work — thicker, sounder material with the checking and cupping assessed for weather exposure rather than looks. Expect it to keep weathering. If you want it to hold the color it has the day it goes up, reclaimed siding is the wrong choice and we will tell you so.

We treat any painted salvaged stock as suspect until it is established otherwise. Pre-1978 paint can contain lead, and sanding or cutting it is where the risk actually is. Painted reclaimed boards can be beautiful, and they need handling and a disclosure conversation rather than a shrug.

Not if it has been dried and acclimated properly. Barn wood coming out of an unconditioned building is nowhere near the moisture content of an air-conditioned house, and installing it wet is how gaps open over the first winter. The fix is unglamorous: bring the moisture content down, let the material sit in the room it is going into until it has stopped moving, and only then fix it in place.

Usually, and this is where working new timber by hand earns its keep. Salvaged stock varies by species, by barn and by which part of the building it came from, so finding a match in salvage alone is largely luck. Working texture and color into new timber to sit against what is already in the room is a controlled process instead. Bring us a sample or a daylight photo and we will tell you honestly how close we can get.

Dismantled barns and agricultural buildings, largely from Texas and the surrounding states. Supply is genuinely finite — there are only so many barns of that age left standing — which is why availability, not price, is usually what constrains a large job.

Yes, and it is a large part of this work. We hew, texture and color new heavy timber by hand so it reads as vintage — on stock we supply, on timber you have already bought, or on beams and posts already installed and standing in the room. It is the practical answer when the spans, the sizes or the sheer volume put genuine salvage out of reach, and it can be matched to beams already in the house in a way that hunting for salvage cannot.

Yes — entry doors, interior doors and sliding barn doors, in salvaged stock or in new timber finished to match the rest of the room. They are built as joinery rather than assembled from a kit, which is what lets them match millwork that is already there.