Whether driven by the historical connotations, the authentic vintage aesthetic, or the mindset of sustainable re-use, interest in antique and reclaimed wide plank flooring is flourishing.
After having served their communities well for a century or more, many 19th- and early 20th-century barns and mills are reaching the end of their productive life or are being retired due to changing demographics and economic realities.
Before demolition, we carefully harvest wooden beams, floorboards, and siding from these historic structures and give them the opportunity to provide perhaps another century of productivity and beauty—this time as flooring in your home.
We offer a variety of antique and reclaimed wood species, including heart pine, white oak, red oak, chestnut, white pine, and milled barnwood. Each comes with a distinctive story to tell, whispered through the well-worn texture, color, and markings they have acquired during generations of use.
It’s easy to envision antique and reclaimed wood re-utilized as flooring in rustic or casual homes such as woodsy retreats, seaside cottages, or urban mill building retrofits.
But more surprising is the unusual yet graceful juxtaposition of traditional and modern, as antique woods are also frequently utilized for flooring in newer contemporary designs and decors.
Taking that to another level, reclaimed flooring planks are often found sitting side by side with cutting-edge sustainable design features, as material re-use is one of the most sustainability-minded choices available. Our reclaimed flooring is FSC-certified and qualifies for LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) credits.
Plank lengths and widths for antique and reclaimed flooring are highly varied, depending on the type of wood, its original use, and the location and age of the building from which they were harvested. Planks that were used for flooring or interior or exterior siding are often quite wide, while boards that provided more structural roles will be less so.
For any given project utilizing reclaimed wood, lengths may fluctuate, adding to the rustic and distinctive look these floors provide.
With 100 to 200 years of use already imprinted on the hearts and souls of these boards, they’ve seen it all and are still ready for more. Reclaimed wood has expanded and contracted over many years and has fully dried out.
That means it is much less prone to warping or splitting. Reclaimed woods also often have dense grains and compressed fibers from decades of use. That translates to increased stability, hardness, and durability. Time and use wears wood in rather than wearing it out.
Just as fine wine develops more depth and character over time, so too does reclaimed wood. Decades of use and generations of activity provide the wood with personality. Softened color and a worn texture, along with occasional marks, cuts, nicks, or even a nail hole all add up to planks with a unique and individual charisma.
In your home, that translates to atmosphere. Depending on the species, the color and texture will range from a rich dark brown with chestnut, to the medium-grained bright yellow of heart pine, to the prominent grain and color variations of oak, to the weathered gray of exterior barnwood.
But regardless of the color, texture, and character marks the individual species or its past application provides, you can be certain that by bringing historically used flooring into your home, you will be suffusing it with a hearty richness and warmth that can only be provided by wood with a storied past.
From an aesthetic standpoint, reclaimed wood will add coziness to your living room, dining room, or bedroom, and provide a welcoming charm to entryways, hallways, kitchens, and family rooms.
From a durability perspective, antique plank flooring is tough enough to handle anything your family can dish out. As such, you can feel comfortable laying it in even the busiest places in your home. And any wear and tear you give it will only add to the rich patina the flooring already exhibits.
As with just about any domestic wood, standing water and persistent moisture are the enemy, so reclaimed and antique woods are not recommended for use in bathrooms or basements, and should not be applied directly over concrete. In these instances, we recommend our reclaimed engineered plank flooring.
Engineered reclaimed flooring is the best of the old world and the new. We mill a 5-millimeter layer of genuine antique wood and affix that to an 11-layer sandwich of new cabinet-grade plywood. The birch provides a solid and stable substrate able to withstand moisture and resist wood’s inclination to expand and contract. And the reclaimed layer on top affords the same historic charm our solid antique planks provide as they are milled from the exact same salvaged materials.
Contact us to learn about which antique and reclaimed woods are available. We’d love to help you determine if one of these historic options is the right fit for your home.
