Bark of Character

By The Editors
September 9, 2013 9:00 am

The country, of late, has a fetish for reclaimed wood — and hell, why not. It’s romantic.

Why settle for soul-free and sanitized lumber when your next countertop could be made from, say, Spanish oak longboards pried from the keels of sunken galleons?

That’s pretty much what’s on tap at Brothers of Industry: a group of carpenters in the aptly named hamlet of Carpintería, building custom furniture out of lumber reclaimed from centuries-old barns and factories.

These Brothers (literal ones) scour the country for old-growth wood: wood that grew for 500 years before settlers harvested it to accommodate westward expansion.

The Brothers, in turn, harvest the fruits of that expansion to make beautiful wares for your living room.

Heard of the Gore family tobacco farm in Tennessee? The Brothers bought 16,000 square feet of it.

And they’re using that wood to shape skateboards, furniture and larger scale projects, like Arts District foodie Mecca Bestia.

Of note: the Indiana Oak Dining Table. Its wood is so dense (ten rings-per-inch, compared to the three that is standard of new-growth) that it weighs 400 lbs.

You can scope out their work online or firsthand at their Santa Barbara showroom. They specialize in custom orders, and each piece takes about two-to-three weeks to fabricate.

Then sit back and admire your new (old) wood.

It’s certainly aged well, hasn’t it?

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