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Finishing Tip
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Partnered with SDA Craft, we now represent a line of low-VOC stains and lacquers in a wide range of colors and three levels of sheen, available directly through us or Livingreen in Culver City, Santa Barbara and Montecito.
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Friends, Finds & Collaborations
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Fyndes is a showcase for art, photography, antiques and contemporary
designs. They provide a marketplace for
independent artists, dealers and designers, as well as
inspiration for home decorators and interior designers. They also host an exquistly curated blog.
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| Dear ya'll,
Welcome!
This (not quite) monthly e-newsletter will answer the questions that
people always seem to ask when we tell them our business, woodworking.
Please
forward this to friends or anyone you think would be interested, and
click on a link or two, so we can tell what you like to read.
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Good Wood (Part Two: Salvaged/Reclaimed)
What is your favorite wood to work with?
 As a kid in Birmingham, Alabama, I was a junior member in a notorious crew known as The Dragons.
My older brother and his friend were the indomitable leaders. I
generally played the role of bad guy, who was routinely pummeled when
his fiendish plots were foiled.
The leaders did cut us some
slack, once a week, the day before the trash trucks came, we were set
loose on sort of gangland furlough for the "trash hunt." We ran wild
from curbside pile, to pile, discovering treasures and trinkets that
we'd take back to the clubhouse. We would find invaluable totems like a
broken broom handle, a loose bike fender, or some old rope that became,
by it's own amazing and inexplicable power, a potent and dangerous
samurai weapon.
When I first started working with wood, like
most, I was drawn to the exotic species from Africa and South
America. If you've never seen zebrawood or coco bolo or gaboon ebony, the first time is an eye opener, like your first... your first... (insert your significant first here). I hadn't imagined wood could grow so dense and dark and with such varied colors. But I'd see the price tag and lose interest.
Of
course, more problematic is that many exotic woods are as endangered as
the animals that once lived in their shade, so you have to beware, but
that's another newsletter.
So what's a woodworker to do?
Once a dragon, always a dragon! What about the wood I see around me all
the time? Why not turn this nicely stacked log pile into tabletops?
What about these palettes? What's in that construction dumpster? The
tree trimmer's truck? Where's the treasure?
After a lot of
experimentation and failures and mistakes, I understood why lumber is
farmed and dried and sold in nicely dimensioned units. It is easier to
use. A lot easier. I feared I'd grown out of my dragon days for good.
Enter, The Lumber Lady. Judith Mattart, aka the Lumber Lady, ran a
salvage lumber operation out two double-wides and some cargo containers
in a residential neighborhood in Yuma, Arizona. She specialized in
black mesquite that was being cleared as a "nuisance" to developers and road builders in the region. She had black and brown hickory
from a backyard in Tennessee. She offered me an entire Chinese elm
tree, cut into 4' log rounds, for free, if I could get them into my
truck. I could only fit one.
Salvaged
wood refers to timber that has been cleared due to development, fire
damage, insect invasion, tornado tear downs, or natural death of older
trees. It would otherwise be headed for a long rot in the landfill or
burned. Reclaimed wood has been used in one application, like ceiling
joists, roof timbers, floors, or wine staves, and has been given second life. Reclaimed wood can be up-cycled into furniture, cabinets or other long-lasting products.
I've
been around this game all my life. The tornado season in Central
Alabama piled a mountain of firewood that my brother and I would spend
weekends of forced labor, "snaking firewood" up the hill through the
woods, splitting and stacking. How many board feet must I have gone
through? How many tables, chairs, walls, houses...
The Lumber
Lady died after I had known her only three years. Each time I visited,
I loaded my truck until it scraped the ground. She always threw in a
few extra rarities for free. I still have some of it in the shop. She
also must have given me some of her secret power, because, salvaged,
reclaimed, and any sort of weird "maybe you can do something with this"
wood comes to me like stray dogs. They are my favorite woods to use, and I seem to be their favorite.
Thanks Lumber Lady
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Press
Business Week
Woodworking is a passion, but a commercial wood shop is a business. Interesting to see Business Week felt our input was relevant to economic trends.
Eco-stiletto
This
newsletter and website encourages it's readers to stiletto-size it's
carbon footprint, one small step at a time. Cliff Spencer Furniture
Maker was featured in the home section.
Follow or become a Fan if you Twitter or Facebook
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On the Workbench
New Projects and Photos
 We completed the redesign of the Casa del Mar Spa in Santa Monica, under the sustainable design expertise of Rachel Winokur at etta designs.
Working with the architecture firm PleskowRael, we contributed several elements to the Westside Tavern.
We built a glamorous outdoor table and refinished a set of vintage benches for the interior design studio, Woodson and Rummerfield.
Last
but not least, we have been salvaging our own offcuts to create
beautiful cutting boards. Currently, we have ash and walnut. They make
elegant and eco-friendly gifts. Call or email us and we'll let you know
what's available.
See the New Projects |
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Our
services include the highest quality modern and traditional cabinetry,
custom furniture, green materials, finishing & refinishing. We
work with general contractors, architects, interior designers and
individual home owners.
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We always look forward to hearing your questions and suggestions.
Thanks, Cliff and Leigh Spencer
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