Old lumber becomes fine new furniture
by Nick Roskelly | union west Writer | Waxhaw
A stack of stained, square pieces of wood are inside the shop. Outside, beams with a similar stain dry in the open air. Four weeks ago, the polished pieces were battered, sad piles of rescued lumber.
At the hands of Josh and Marcus Burch, the wormy oak and chesnut wood from old barns in the North Carolina mountains will soon be the primary elements of a residential library near Lake Norman.
Owners of Burch Heirloom in Waxhaw for approximately live years, the Burches have focused their work on furniture and other small projects.
The construction of wooden panels, shelves and ceiling for an entire room is the first large-scale project the brothers have pursued.
The brothers say that not only the size of the project, but working with old wood are challenges.
“There’s a lot more preparation involved with the old wood,” Marcus Burch said. “We have to take a lot of time bringing it back.” Tedious tasks of culling, or sorting, wood, sanding it, planing it and shaping it are all additional steps that come with working with rescued lumber.
But the extra labor has its positive side according to the Burches.
“First of all, it’s pretty rare wood. So it’s nice to have,” Marcus Burch said. “But the thing I really like is the history behind these old barns the wood comes from.”
With an idea of the family that owned the barn and what its use was, the brothers find a degree of personality in the
wood.
They essentially fmd themselves recutting, reshaping and restaining the past into a wooden object of the future.
As fourth-generation woodworkers, have been around woodshops for most of their lives.
Sometimes unconscious of what they know about the craft, they both say an early introduction to woodworking has helped them make decisions about how to approach this most recent project.
“We’re been exposed to this all om’ life,” Josh Burch said.
“I don’t even realize I know how to do something until I
do it sometimes.” The brothers have developed most of the creative
design for the project. In fact, the client told them to build it how they themselves would want a similar room, Marcus Burch said. Q
“I just think about it all the time. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and realize how we can do some thing,” he added.
With a consistent word-of-mouth approach to the business, they’ve seen their shop grow adding new equipment as often as they can afford.
“Eventually I think we’d like to make limited edition pieces like art,” Marcus Burch said. “But for now, we’ll just do what we can to
get better and learn more.” For details, visit www.burchheirloom.com (now www.burchcompanywoodstudio.com).
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