Restoring Texas

Restoring Texas

How one man finds his passion in old wood.

By Russell A. Graves

“This place still has some great wood,” says Nathan Daves of Maypearl as we traipse through waist high ryegrass and volunteer oats to look at a couple of barns on an old Johnson County farmstead. Walking into the first barn, he places his hands on the wood and begins to read the grain as if it were a book.

“This is old growth longleaf pine,” he says. “It probably came from East Texas because back then, wood wasn’t shipped very far.”

The wood is patinaed by years of exposure to weather, bugs, and livestock and helps to tell a story of human history from this speck on a Texas map. A hundred or so yards away we reach the old farm house from which Nathan’s been plucking wood. With a homemade pry bar, he pulls one-by, shiplapped pine lumber from the walls. The nails stubbornly creak and groan as they are pulled away from beefy and dense two by four wall studs that are actually two inches by four inches in width and thickness: not the scaled down versions used in current construction. For maybe ninety years, the wood pieces were joined by nails that stood up to the sometimes harsh Texas weather as well as the tribulations and joys that untold families experienced while living here.

Where most people see an old houses destined to be torn down and burned, Nathan sees art and redemption.

Simply, Nathan is a furniture maker and runs a small company called Restoring Texas. He handcrafts pieces like tables and cabinets, and other furniture that most probably take for granted. However, each piece serves as an essential part of our daily lives.

He is no ordinary furniture maker, though. He builds each piece from lumber he’s personally harvested from old homes and barns that time and people have forgotten. Nathan hasn’t forgotten, though. He sees each old board as something that can be saved and rebuilt into pieces that are transformative in people’s lives.

Inspiration Daves says his desire to build came early in life. Stoked by a blue-collar work ethic modeled by his father and a nurturing mother who encouraged his creative endeavors, Daves first began making furniture in college. He dedicated himself to learning the techniques of furniture makers and admittedly making mistakes along the way.

After earning a degree in English, he spent a dozen years in public education before deciding to walk way from teaching and administration four years ago. He dove headlong into making the kind of furniture for which he is passionate.

“Furniture is a living breathing element of your space.,” says Daves. “It's not just some mundane abstract

object shoved into a corner. Furniture gives context to everything else in that room.”

With that thought in mind, Daves tries to find wood that tells a story and can be repurposed into furniture that has meaning and context. Wood that has a story to tell. To that extent, he prefers making furniture from wood that comes

from homes and barns built before the 1930’s. Much of this wood, he says, comes from old growth lumber that is hewn by hand or milling machinery that’s no longer in use. Essentially, it’s lumber that has imperfections and character - completely counter to the homogeny found in modern lumber production.

Old Wood The Texas timber industry is a long and storied one. Before the Texas revolution, a few sawmills dotted the state. After the

new nation rose and eventually annexed by the United States, timber operations continued to develop. By 1860, 200 mills operated in the state and the value of their production was the equivalent of nearly $46 million in today’s dollars.

According to the Texas Historical Commission, logging occurred at at frenetic pace and soon, the central Texas forests were depleted. The wood harvested was being used to build a growing state. As the state grew, so did the

By the late 1870’s many of the East Texas forests were still largely pristine. Historical accounts indicated that before the 1880’s, 150 foot tall trees measuring five feet in diameter at the base weren’t uncommon. As railroads were established for shipping and more modern milling techniques introduced, the old

growth timber began to fall and by 1920, much of Texas’ original forest lands were logged. Save for a few isolated and protected pockets, the state’s original forests are gone. The wood from them made everything from barrel staves to lumber for houses and commercial buildings.

This old lumber is what’s sought after

by designers and furniture builders. The wood's connection to the past that’s palpable and authentic. The old wood grain and milling marks gives the wood a warmth that cannot be replicated from modern tree farms or cleaner milling techniques.

To that extent, the old wood and the techniques to make new wood look old are in great demand by designers, builders, and homeowners.

Design Trends Trends come and go but one of the hottest as of late is using reclaimed wood in interior design and furniture construction. The internet is replete with blogs and websites dedicated on teaching people how to “reclaim, repurpose, and reuse” wood. The notion is simple: reclaimed wood takes up less room in landfills and is somewhat widely available. As such the DIY set has embraced reclaimed wood as a functional building material and the professional design and interior decorating community embraces it as a sensible and stylish design theme.

“Reclaimed lumber has a history, and brings that history into a new home or new renovation,” says Becky Harris, lead contributor who tracks and reports on design trends for the popular home design website Houzz.com. “It's a conversation starter. Whether the connection is personal or not, it connects a brand new house to a time in history.”

Inside of my own newly constructed house, we’ve embraced the repurposed wood philosophy as our mantle, kitchen bar, and office desktop are made from wood that’s been harvested from an early 1900’s North Texas barn. The pieces are functional, fit the design aesthetic of our farmhouse design sensibilities, and are instant conversation starters.

13“The first thing people do is run their hand across the old pine beams and ask about the bar’s origin,” says my wife Kristy. “People connect with the warmth and the imperfections of the wood in a way that elicits a response that new furniture never would.”

The reason? Old wood has character.

Much of the wood with which Daves builds is no longer available at lumber yards. Old growth pine trees are no longer harvested and made commercially available. Most of the lumber sold at retail today comes from pine plantations or are made from recent generation hardwoods. As such each piece of furniture built from reclaimed wood is a one of a kind piece made from materials that are becoming more and more scarce.

Harris says that the design trend to build with old lumber fits today’s trend of environmentally sustainable building practices. Furthermore, she says old lumber satiates an emotional response. “Rustic design is relaxing and makes one feel at ease. It's also nostalgic‚ — it reminds people of a favorite ramshackle lake house or woodsy cabin where they've felt close to nature.”

A Labor of Love Twenty years after he made his first piece, Daves still finds passion in handcrafting each piece of furniture that he makes for his clients. His pieces are found in homes and restaurants all over Texas and each one is a unique creation made from wood that was cut and hewn over a century ago from trees that were already 200 - 500 years old. Each piece has it’s own “soul” and history and is worthy of redemption. The wood’s redemptive qualities are, according to Daves, parallel to people’s lives.

“The wood is worn and dilapidated, yet it's given a new purpose, a new life,” laments Daves. “We should be able to see the stories of our own lives in these pieces: Forgotten. Abandoned. BUT renewed, redeemed.”

He says he loves to see the eyes of his clients light up when they hear the history behind the pieces that Daves and his team make. Furthermore, when he leaves behind the pieces, he is satisfied in the notion that the furniture helps create and sustain familial bonds.

“Our furniture comes to people with a certain historical richness. It tells the stories of families who used this wood before as well as a persevering way of life they experienced,” he says.

“The furniture then becomes a piece for a new family to build their own memories around. That’s satisfying.”