Sustainability in the City

KC Custom Hardwoods Gives Fallen Trees a Second Life

By Samantha Wright, Elementary Education Undergraduate Student

Jay Norris, ’13, and Nick Bianco, ’11, know for a fact that when a tree falls in the city it makes a sound — the sound of their phone ringing at KC Custom Hardwoods.

When Nick and Jay discovered that trees removed within city limits were being thrown into landfills, they searched Craigslist and Facebook ads for firewood or downed trees to salvage. Eventually they started working with tree companies, and today they have an arrangement with Kansas City’s Forestry and Conservation division to have a look at any trees tagged for disposal.

They make good use of the “urban wood” that commercial mills reject because of damage from signs, barbed wire or even a motor valve they found in one tree they salvaged.

“How many people over the years have nailed a lost cat or garage sale sign to a tree,” says Nick, noting that nails and other metal can dull saw blades and slow down a milling operation. “We just accept it because it’s the right thing to do. … We made it our mission that we wanted to save as many trees as we could.”

Alumni onwers of KC Custom Hardwoods Jay Norris, left, and Nick Bianco.

Sustainable Sourcing

The story of KC Custom Hardwoods starts with saving the trees on Jay’s family farm. As a Marketing student at UCM, Jay took a trip home to check on the farm

while his parents were on vacation. He found loggers illegally cutting down their trees and chased them off before they could do any more damage. After the ordeal, his family was left with “a lifetime supply of firewood.”

Jay researched how to dry and preserve the wood and experimented with woodworking so he could give the trees a second life. As time progressed, so did his skills. After about four years, he connected with his college friend Nick, who earned a degree from UCM in Business Management. Nick agreed to help Jay sell one of the tables he made in exchange for Jay teaching Nick how to build them. KC Custom Hardwoods was born.

Customers often come to Nick and Jay with their own stories about trees that hold sentimental value. Sometimes it’s about preserving a piece of their family history — the bur oak with the wooden swing or the black cherry tree that the children would harvest for their roadside stand at the end of summer.

“We got a huge pin oak from the Waldo Area of Kansas City, and we’ve seen hundreds of comments on social media of people talking about how beloved that tree was,” Nick says of a park tree that died and had to come down. “We’ve had people reaching out to us saying they wanted a piece of it just as a memento.”

This year Kansas City is expecting to remove up to 1,000 ash trees that were infested with the emerald ash borer beetle.

Above: KC Custom Hardwoods' staple product is the live-edge table. Below: The company's new space features a studio where customers can participate in designing their own custom furniture.

New Growth

When the COVID-19 pandemic was at its peak, KC Custom Hardwoods’ business was growing exponentially. People were canceling trips and wanting to find something creative to use the money on instead. What better way to redecorate your house than with custom-made, local, sustainable furniture?

In 2021, Jay and Nick partnered up with entrepreneur Jeff Perry, who helped them purchase larger equipment to process the trees faster and more efficiently. They can now dry 10,000 board feet of lumber (measured in volume versus length, as with a two-by-four) per month versus only 1,500 a month with their previous kiln. Their new bandsaw mill can handle trees up to 30 feet long and 6 feet wide.

Today, KC Custom Hardwoods has grown to include a showroom for customers to see what they offer and participate in the design process to ensure their custom furniture is everything they dreamed of. Nick and Jay have 22 employees, including a full-time 3D model designer, and are opening a new location in Overland Park, Kansas.

“We were just a small boutique-style business where we were making a couple tables a week,” says Nick, remembering when he and Jay’s primary source of materials was trees listed in the classifieds as firewood. “It was maybe bad luck that got us started in this, but it was definitely hard work that kept us going.”

In 2022, KC Custom Hardwoods earned the Kansas City Industrial Council's Silver Sustainability Award.