Reclaimed Heart Pine - $17.39/SF
Reclaimed Hardwood – 8” x 5/8” x Random length up to 8’
Genuine reclaimed heart pine has been crafted out of 100-year-old beams and decking salvaged from historic buildings across North America. Through laborious and time-consuming techniques, artisans are able to restore, by hand, this wonderful resource, preserving a moment in time from the past so it can be cherished for generations to come. Our craftsmen are committed to taking North America’s heart pine, now all but gone from its native forests, and giving it a new life.
American longleaf pine, commonly known as heart pine, played an important role in North American history as we began to industrialize and become one of the world’s manufacturing powerhouses. Despite the fact that heart pine lumber comes from a coniferous tree and is therefore classified as a softwood, heart pine exhibits tremendous strength and hardness, ranking 1225 on the Janka hardness scale, putting it ahead of several hardwood lumber species such as teak, English oak, and red maple.
Given heart pine’s exceptional strength on the one hand, and ease of woodworking on the other, it quickly became the species of choice for the heavy beams, posts, and other structural members of the numerous cotton mills, factories, and warehouses that sprang up across the land as America began to industrialize in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
As North America continued to industrialize, the appetite for heart pine proceeded unabated, to the point where almost every stand of heart pine forest had been clear-cut and stripped of all trees unfortunately. Through over-harvesting and other forms of habitat encroaching, today heart pine has been reduced to less than 3% of its original range. This fact makes the centuries-old lumber, reclaimed from the old mills and factories now being taken down, all the more precious.
Many love reclaimed heart pine because of its century-old patina and because of the vintage effects that woodworkers achieves through a variety of artisanal techniques which add texture and distinctiveness to every plank.
The skillful artisans who hand-work each plank enhance and preserve reclaimed heart pine’s inherent character. Nail holes and checks are expertly filled, and bolt holes and larger defects are repaired with natural heart pine wood plugs and patches.
This reclaimed material has been upcycled and given a new purpose. Instead of cutting down more trees we reuse what we already have in a sustainable process working towards a circular economy.
