Reclaimed wood

This weekend my husband and I worked on building a shelving unit for a space in my office. The story and photos of that will be posted once the project is finished (hopefully this week!).

But the work got me thinking about how much I want to have my husband teach me the finer points of woodworking. I lived in Baltimore for six years and spent the majority of that time completely rehabbing a 1920 brick rowhouse. In that process, I removed several old wood rafters and beams. The wood is simply stunning. I used two pieces to make new handrails for the stairs of that house, but I loaded up the rest of the wood in a U-haul and brought it with me when I moved. I’ve always had plans to use the wood to build something, preferably an old farmer’s style table—one that is very simple, rustic, long, and narrow. For now the wood sits in a pile in our workshop, but the project this weekend has sent me on a new search for inspiring uses of reclaimed wood.

Here are some of my favorite items.


Top row: An old workbench that would be great as a kitchen island, and a flat file that I would love to have for all of my Japanese papers! Both from here.
Middle row: a rock elm trestle table, a heavy pine harvest table with legs, and a lovely farm table. Bottom row: Another neat workbench made of wood, metal and granite that would make a great kitchen island; a great use for an old beam as an outdoor bench; and another table with a really interesting trestle.