Photograph by Virginie Druzon-Kippelen
It is a actuality laborious to disregard: Atlanta is a metropolis of timber. At practically 50 %, town has the best proportion of total city tree cover within the nation. However for all of the aesthetic and environmental advantages that timber present to our city panorama, there’s a sensible draw back: Timber should fall, or be taken down, after which disposed of from streets and backyards alike. If the wooden has a excessive worth, the tree will get a second life as a helpful piece of wooden. If not, it would probably find yourself in a landfill — the destiny of hundreds of city timber in and round Atlanta annually.
Photograph by Virginie Druzon-Kippelen
{Photograph} courtesy of the Atlanta Wooden Basis
For Carpenter Kelly and Ali Syed, this “tragic waste” impressed them to behave. Sourcing wooden has at all times been a part of their story. Shortly earlier than the Covid-19 pandemic hit, the couple began a enterprise creating {custom} furnishings and ornamental items for patrons. The corporate continued to develop till the second yr, when issues obtained sophisticated. “Lumber costs have gone loopy as a result of individuals are doing loads of renovations to their properties, which has additionally precipitated points with the availability chain,” says Kelly Syed. A pal of theirs, Chris Tappan, recommended making a non-profit, which might enable them to obtain donated wooden with out having to purchase it. The trio created the Atlanta Wooden Basis, a singular nonprofit group inside an unlimited community of for-profit city wooden industries. Along with working a sawmill, they salvage salvaged timber and course of the wooden into furniture-grade lumber and live-edge wooden slabs—at all times in excessive demand—which they promote to DIYers, carpenters, and craftsmen.
The Atlanta Wooden Basis is a real labor of affection, working evenings and weekends and between the calls for of the homeowners’ respective day jobs. It depends on timber donations from tree corporations, massive and small, but in addition from personal landowners, who can obtain tax credit based mostly on the greenback worth of the usable timber they donate. Because the basis’s inception, in actual fact, getting wooden has been the simplest a part of the equation: Grants have stored coming, however discovering clients has been more durable. Over time, via phrase of mouth, social media posts and visitors to their on-line retailer, the muse is slowly gaining visibility.
{Photograph} courtesy of the Atlanta Wooden Basis
{Photograph} courtesy of the Atlanta Wooden Basis
{Photograph} courtesy of the Atlanta Wooden Basis
The warehouse is a candy little wooden store away from house. Situated within the shadow of I-20 on a stretch of Memorial Drive in entrance of the cell tower, the outside is suffering from massive items of wooden in numerous states of improvement. When the weekend arrives, the air is crammed with the hum of chainsaws and milling gear. The magic is inside. After being milled into slabs, the wooden is air-dried for 2 months, then positioned in custom-built dehumidification kilns for 2 to 4 months. This drying course of is critical to keep away from warping, cracking, insect and mould development. As soon as the slabs are processed to a furniture-grade stage, they’re stocked, inventoried and prepared on the market.
All wooden is sourced from domestically harvested timber and displays the wealthy number of species discovered within the metro space: pink and white oak, poplar, black walnut, hickory, maple, pecan and extra. The muse plans to ultimately open a brick-and-mortar retailer, however for now, clients should purchase instantly from the web site, which is consistently up to date with the arrival of recent live-edge slabs and different stock.
{Photograph} courtesy of the Atlanta Wooden Basis
Photograph courtesy of Ryan Clark
One such buyer is Ryan Clark, a Decatur-based furnishings producer. He not too long ago turned a black walnut log salvaged by the muse right into a handcrafted mid-century desk for a consumer. As a longtime Atlanta resident, he has seen a whole bunch of fallen timber on metropolis streets, and the sight has at all times pained him. Being steward of the pure atmosphere is necessary to him, and shopping for wooden from the muse has added worth to his lumber enterprise. “Lots of my shoppers love the concept of saving a tree from a landfill,” says Clark.
This text appeared in our July 2024 subject.
commercial
