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News & Events Mid-America News Show Calendar State Event Calendars Regular Features The Antique Detective Antique Detective Q&A Common Sense Antiques Refurnished Thoughts Traveling with Ken Good Eye Books for Collectors Directories & Classifieds The Finder: Unique Shops Lodgings Directory Museum Directory Aviation Museums Wineries in the Heartland Classifieds Web Links Archived Features Antiquing in Colorado Dealer Profile Archive Editor's Notebook Heirloom Recipes Helpful Hints for Collectors Is This An Antique? Past Cover Features Reflecting History 2005 Best Of Winners *Destinations 2006*	Discover Mid-America — November 2005 Like Depression Era newlyweds Will wonders never cease? An article about furniture in the Wall Street Journal caught my eye recently. The accompanying photographs were interesting and they had a period look to them. But the article itself left me wrinkling my brow and scratching my head. I started to think about our early married years when many of us were college students and took gratefully whatever our parents or grandparents offered us to furnish our apartments. Not long after that the “crate and barrel” boys hit on the idea to reuse crate and barrel lumber. But the latest is not cheap pallet material — we are talking high dollar and high-end market. The newest furniture hitting the market place is not new. Someone had the bright idea of taking old materials — wagon wheels, spokes, timbers from old mills — and using them to make interesting pieces of furniture. The Furniture Society, a trade group of independent craftsmen, points out that several manufacturers have sprung up. In fact, the group says that in the past nine years, the number has grown tenfold. They’re all busy designing and building furniture using American and foreign cast-off woods and items, and this stuff is selling well. One company is taking leftover mahogany and making guitars and fashioning things like coffee tables. A Dallas company is selling things like a table and chair unit for over $2,000. They’re made from farm implements bought in Laos, Cambodia and Thailand. Even though these implements are from the 1940s and ‘50s, with the use and weathering they get an antique look that is very marketable. Vendors say that this market is the hottest one they service. Prices aren’t cheap, the buyers are the well heeled and sales are very good. A West Virginia company that has made reproduction furniture for a long time is looking into buildings that have a considerable amount of good furniture-quality timbers and lumber to use in their next “reclaimed collection.” The owner says that people love to tell visitors that the bed or table or whatever was made from an unusual source. The new owners not only have a new-old piece of furniture, but a conversation piece as well. It is rather amazing what designers use. The ceiling from a 1920’s cottage, lab tables from a 1940’s high school, a tree trunk, and even a coffee table made from a blacksmith’s bellows. One would think twice about junking what is in the old family barn after reading about these entrepreneurs. Some years ago, the Brits were sending us lovely Welsh dressers that certainly looked old. These were reclaimed treasures. They used old wood, redesigned into very usable furniture for the American market, and they sold like the proverbial hotcakes. It is happening again, but this time the furniture is more varied, the materials more varied, and the sources more Asiatic. These manufacturers also say that these recycled materials cost about 25 percent more than the ordinary sources, which is the reason for the higher prices. In jest, the article mentions that one company has taken old money, shredded it, pressed it into slabs that look like granite and is using this reclaimed into tabletops. Then there’s the one using sunflower hulls and pressing them into slabs. One owner supposedly found an employee chewing on a “hull” filing cabinet. Methinks the employee was a mouse or just someone very hungry! Let’s go out to the shed and see what we can turn into something unique! Norma Crews is a native Texan, graduate of Texas Tech, former teacher and rancher, mother of three grown sons and six grandchildren, and raised in South Texas on a ranch as a member of two pioneer families. Upon retiring from teaching and ranching, she and her husband James became pickers for large Texas shops, before branching into doing shows for a number of years in Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas. She currently resides in Neosho, MO. > Is This An Antique? Archive — past columns	{rightside ad cell}
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Discover Mid-America — November 2005

Like Depression Era newlyweds

Will wonders never cease? An article about furniture in the Wall Street Journal caught my eye recently. The accompanying photographs were interesting and they had a period look to them. But the article itself left me wrinkling my brow and scratching my head.

I started to think about our early married years when many of us were college students and took gratefully whatever our parents or grandparents offered us to furnish our apartments. Not long after that the “crate and barrel” boys hit on the idea to reuse crate and barrel lumber. But the latest is not cheap pallet material — we are talking high dollar and high-end market.

The newest furniture hitting the market place is not new. Someone had the bright idea of taking old materials — wagon wheels, spokes, timbers from old mills — and using them to make interesting pieces of furniture. The Furniture Society, a trade group of independent craftsmen, points out that several manufacturers have sprung up. In fact, the group says that in the past nine years, the number has grown tenfold. They’re all busy designing and building furniture using American and foreign cast-off woods and items, and this stuff is selling well.

One company is taking leftover mahogany and making guitars and fashioning things like coffee tables. A Dallas company is selling things like a table and chair unit for over $2,000. They’re made from farm implements bought in Laos, Cambodia and Thailand. Even though these implements are from the 1940s and ‘50s, with the use and weathering they get an antique look that is very marketable. Vendors say that this market is the hottest one they service. Prices aren’t cheap, the buyers are the well heeled and sales are very good.

A West Virginia company that has made reproduction furniture for a long time is looking into buildings that have a considerable amount of good furniture-quality timbers and lumber to use in their next “reclaimed collection.” The owner says that people love to tell visitors that the bed or table or whatever was made from an unusual source. The new owners not only have a new-old piece of furniture, but a conversation piece as well.

It is rather amazing what designers use. The ceiling from a 1920’s cottage, lab tables from a 1940’s high school, a tree trunk, and even a coffee table made from a blacksmith’s bellows. One would think twice about junking what is in the old family barn after reading about these entrepreneurs.

Some years ago, the Brits were sending us lovely Welsh dressers that certainly looked old. These were reclaimed treasures. They used old wood, redesigned into very usable furniture for the American market, and they sold like the proverbial hotcakes. It is happening again, but this time the furniture is more varied, the materials more varied, and the sources more Asiatic. These manufacturers also say that these recycled materials cost about 25 percent more than the ordinary sources, which is the reason for the higher prices.

In jest, the article mentions that one company has taken old money, shredded it, pressed it into slabs that look like granite and is using this reclaimed into tabletops. Then there’s the one using sunflower hulls and pressing them into slabs. One owner supposedly found an employee chewing on a “hull” filing cabinet. Methinks the employee was a mouse or just someone very hungry!

Let’s go out to the shed and see what we can turn into something unique!

Norma Crews is a native Texan, graduate of Texas Tech, former teacher and rancher, mother of three grown sons and six grandchildren, and raised in South Texas on a ranch as a member of two pioneer families.

Upon retiring from teaching and ranching, she and her husband James became pickers for large Texas shops, before branching into doing shows for a number of years in Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas. She currently resides in Neosho, MO.

> Is This An Antique? Archive — past columns

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