We are fortunate to live in an area where our country’s history can be found at every corner. Extending even past our beautiful Loudoun County, the cities of Alexandria and Arlington alone have blocks of beautiful historic buildings that still harken back to the days of horses and carriages. This inspiration is what drives our love of preservation and makes each piece of wood we carefully reclaim have its own personal significance.
Our farmhouse tables, an integral part of every home, are an especially beautiful showcase of some of the local wood we love to work with. One of my favorites is reclaimed from old tobacco drying barns prevalent in our area of Virginia. During the late 1800s and early 1900s, farmers used a mixture of pine species as siding, floor joists, and roof rafters and constructed barns for drying tobacco – a process that gave what we call tobaccopine its heavily mixed color and character but not the smell of tobacco. The resulting tables have beautiful variations in color when they are sanded, stained finally finished with a pre-catalyzed lacquer that accentuates the wood’s appearance of rich and earthy shades of brown and honey.
Another one of our favorites, Horse Country Oak, which is plentiful here in horse country, is milled from recycled fences and other farm structures. Its beautiful honey and caramel tones lends themselves beautifully to the same finishing process.
And finally one of our favorites for its rustic charm, antique Wormy Chestnut features worm holes and saw marks. It is sourced from barns and homes where because of their durability, it was used for almost everything, and therefore perfect for the farmhouse table, which is the workhorse of the home.
