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The Joinery Company: Giving New Life to a Vanishing Resource |
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The Joinery Company: Giving New Life to a Vanishing Resource |
When most people think about recycling, they usually think of the glass, plastics, paper and metal cans they set out at home or put in containers at work. But there is another kind of recycling that has been going on in Tarboro, North Carolina, for a lot longer than most curbside collection programs. For more than 20 years, The Joinery Company has been recycling one of America's oldest and most beautiful natural resources - the virgin forest.
Reclaims Old Timbers
When abandoned factories and textile mills across the country are taken down, The Joinery reclaims the old timbers from these massive structures. From these timbers, The Joinery craftsmen create beautiful, long-lasting products that range from floors to fine furniture. "We painstakingly handcraft many of our products with mallet and chisel in much the same way the wood was originally worked by master craftsmen hundreds of years ago," says President and Founder of The Joinery Company, Dewey Hudson.
Hand-Milled, Hand-Built Products
The Joinery provides hand-milled and hand-built products from more than 20 antique and rare woods. Flooring, staircases, moldings, and doors are enhanced by careful attention to color and grain matching, balance, and symmetry. To process the timber, The Joinery craftsmen cut away all defects before the boards are straightened and planed by hand-operated and laser-guided saws.
Two of The Joinery's success stories include the authentic heart pine floors for the King's Arms Tavern and other buildings in Colonial Williamsburg and the heart pine materials and mahogany planks for the Rose Hill Plantation Conference Center near Nashville. The company constructs these items in much the same way the originals were made centuries ago. The Nashville project has continued over a ten-year period and includes the addition of a major wing with windows, doors, raised paneling, and even a custom-designed pool table in solid mahogany.
Largest Reclamation Project
Considered the largest reclamation project of its kind in this century, The Joinery Company's most ambitious undertaking to date is the purchase and reclamation of almost 8 million board feet of the highest quality antique pine from the massive framework of the venerable Sears, Roebuck and Company Catalog Building in Chicago. The wood was originally harvested at the turn of the nineteenth century from virgin forests near Bogalusa, Louisiana.
"By recycling these rare, magnificent old timbers, we are giving a second life to the beauty that once was the virgin forest. And by holding to the hand-building traditions of our forefathers, we are preserving the beautiful art of fine craftsmanship for future generations to enjoy," said Hudson.
Potential customers who look over The Joinery's full-color brochure and sample kit containing Douglas Fir and Antique Yellow Pine flooring will probably agree with the brochure's concluding statement: "Let us show you the beauty of recycling. Once you see it, you'll never look at wood the same way again."
For more information about The Joinery Company, contact them at 1-800-726-PINE.