Reclaimed Timber: What a Second Life Really Means
Reclaimed wood is not a finish applied at the end — it is old timber with a history. Here is where ours comes from, what we do to it, and what to expect from it.
Our Reclaim Collection is built from timber that has already had a working life — old doors, beams, railway sleepers and dismantled buildings across Rajasthan and Gujarat. None of it is new wood distressed to look old. That distinction matters, both for what the furniture is and for what your customer should expect from it.
Where it comes from
We buy from demolition merchants and village dealers who have been trading in salvaged wood for decades. Most of what we take is teak, sheesham and old pine, much of it a century or more old. Old-growth timber was slower grown than anything planted today, which is why it is denser, more stable, and far less inclined to move once it has settled.
What we do before it becomes furniture
- Denailing and metal detection. Every board is scanned. Old nails and screws destroy blades and, worse, are found later by a customer.
- Kiln treatment. The wood is heat-treated to kill any insect activity and to bring moisture content down to a level that will survive a heated European or North American interior.
- Grading. We sort by character. Heavy saw marks, nail holes and colour variation are kept where they read as history, and set aside where they would read as damage.
- Minimal surfacing. We plane only as much as we must. Overdo it and you remove the patina that made the board worth reclaiming.
What to tell your customer
Reclaimed furniture is not uniform, and it should not be sold as though it is. Two units of the same design will differ in colour, grain and marking — that is the point of the material, but it needs saying at the point of sale rather than discovered at delivery.
Nail holes, filled checks and tonal variation across a single top are characteristics, not faults. What we do guarantee is that the piece is structurally sound, properly treated, and finished to the same standard as everything else that leaves the workshop.
Ordering in quantity
Because supply depends on what is being dismantled, reclaimed stock is finite in a way that new timber is not. For volume orders we confirm available material before we confirm a lead time, and where a run is large enough that consistency matters, we will reserve the timber for the whole run in one go rather than piecing it together across months.
If you are considering the collection for a project, tell us the quantity early. It is usually the deciding factor in what we can promise.
