Finished Tannery Wood

Due to unforeseen circumstances, the tannery project has been on hold for several months. While clearing out the rest of the building, Greg, one of the owners of the business, suffered a pretty serious heart attack. After quadruple bypass and a few months of recovery, Greg is doing much better. He recently got the OK from his doctor to get back on his motorcycle. Soon he should be able to get in there and clear the place out, and we can get back to work. In the meantime, we have made some beautiful products with the wood we have taken out of the tannery. We still only have a few pictures though. That's the problem when most of your products go in people's homes. Sometimes it is hard to go back and intrude into some body's house to take pictures. I have never seen many of our nicest products installed and finished. Occasionally though, some customers are very gracious and allow us to intrude. The floor is in the home of Shawn and Dave West. The other pieces are in Back to Eden Bakery, which will be opening on NE Alberta St in Portland. There is a bar top with a back splash, a walk-thru counter flip top and a table top.

Progress

Well, we are moving along slowly but surely. With only two people on the job for much of the time we have been moving especially slowly. But we have managed to get down all three pole barns and three sections of the main building, the fleshing room, the tank room and the boiler room. Everything has gone as planned so far. No big surprises except for a couple of mummified possums in the walls. We managed to make it through the recent "arctic blast" without sustaining any damage. We did have a recent unrelated scare though. While working one day a couple of weeks ago we saw several fire and police vehicles parked across the street for several hours. Eventually the Dallas Fire Department arson investigator showed up. He asked if we were missing any tools or accelerants and informed us that there was a serial arsonist in the area. I would think we would be a prime target for that but fortunately we have not heard from him since.
We have already made some really beautiful flooring and trim with tannery wood and hope to have some pictures soon. Plans are also being drawn for a timber-frame home using many of the beams from the building.
If you are interested in any fir bark and are willing to haul it away from the tannery, please contact us and come take as much as you can.

Salem Statesman Journal

The Salem Statesman Journal recently did an article about the Muir & McDonald project. A follow up article is planned in the next few weeks.

check it out here -
http://www.statesmanjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080910/COMMUNITIES/809100373/1117

Muir & McDonald Tannery

We recently began our latest deconstruction project. It is the Muir & McDonald Tannery in Dallas, Oregon. Muir & McDonald began operating in 1863. After being destroyed by fire, the building was rebuilt around 1902. Until closing for business about a year ago, Muir & McDonald held several superlatives. It was the oldest tannery west of the Mississippi, it was the oldest business in Polk county, and it was the oldest tannery in the country using the slow vegetable tanning process. The building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. Upon deciding to sell the property, the owners contacted us to save the building from the landfill and give it new life. The property has five buildings. There are three pole barns, a scale house and the main building. The pole barns are sided with beautiful 12 inch barn-style siding. The main building is a three story, 40,000 square foot facility. It is full of thousands of feet of beautiful tongue and groove flooring, lapped siding, and large beams. Most of the wood has absorbed a hundred years worth of tanning oils and residues that should infuse it with some beautiful patina. This project should definitely yield some truly beautiful and unique old wood.

Why choose reclaimed?

Reclaimed lumber products offer the advantage of quality, beauty and environmental friendliness. Decades of air drying impart dimensional stability. Tight dense grain highlights unique character and patterns. Nail holes and saw marks from centuries past reveal the era of its origin. The three trillion board feet of timber and lumber harvested in the United States since the beginning of the 20th century represents an abundance of quality material that still resides in buildings and other structures. As these structures reach the end of their usability, reclaiming their lumber for today’s products eases harvesting pressure on forests and reduces landfill volume. In the Portland metro area alone, an estimated 900,000 board feet of wood waste could be diverted from landfills every year (USFS, Forest Products Laboratory, 04/2005).