Capers Landrum Cauthen finds old wood that’s headed for the landfill and gives it new life as furniture that’s overflowing with character. [quote]“I started grabbing the wood from job sites or the pieces of wood that were piled at the end of the road on Sunday afternoons. Sometimes I would find a 200-year-old piece of wood,” he says. “These days it’s called recycling, but I guess I’m just a scavenger.”[/quote]. Read more at the Charleston City Paper.
One of the most important parts of any project is selecting the wood you’ll use. While we usually go for a wood based on it’s properties or color or figure, sometimes it’s all about the story. I just ordered myself some Kauri wood from WoodCraft for this reason. It looks pretty plain, but it has some iridescence, and it’s textured like Basswood, but here’s the kicker, it’s 50,000 years old!
The kauri forests originate in the Northern Island of New Zealand, and it has been scientifically proven that they were around before the Ice Age. According to one theory, they were knocked down by a giant tsunami and buried in peat bogs for over 50,000 years, where they were perfectly preserved from the elements that would otherwise have rotted them away.
Not a bad story, and not a bad price either.