Beautiful wood from wine barrels and old barns is finding new life in the hands of contemporary furniture
makers. The result is familiar and fresh, a new rustic style.
“We are just north of the wine country here in California, and over the years, a long time ago now, (we) have seen a lot of barrels being disposed of,” says Whit McLeod, whose acclaimed furniture draws from the Arts and Crafts tradition.
“Obviously, it’s good quality wood,” he says. “It’s kind of a challenge to figure out what to do with it other than cutting it into a half-barrel planter.”
McLeod found a unique way to use the barrels, in a signature folding chair whose oak staves express the smooth wooden curves of their origins.
“About 99 percent of people sit down and say it’s more comfortable than it looks,” he says.
Barrel of crafts
From there, he’s produced dining suites, tables, benches, comfy indoor chairs and even toilet seats, complete with the brands of the original wine barrel’s manufacturer.
“We have pretty dwindling resources,” says McLeod, who used to be a wildlife biologist. “So it feels good to make something useful out of something that’s being discarded.”
Some of the wood comes from tanks a century old and from torn-down industrial buildings whose salvaged Douglas fir makes substantial furniture.
“The older wood came from a time when it’s just better quality lumber,” McLeod says. “And then in making tanks, they always used very high-quality wood.”
The grain and cut of the boards are admirable, and the wood is well seasoned, he says. He retains its old marks and hence its character.
Marks of character
Such marks are visible on furniture in Lauren Falabella’s Florida shop, Village TradeWinds, which opened in December. She carries pieces made from wine barrels by 2-Day Designs of Georgia.
“I decided to carry it just because I thought it was something unique looking,” Falabella says. “It’s not something you see every day in homes. I just like the fact it’s actually the recycled wine barrels.”
Among the pieces is a dining set with a round table – complete with barrel in the middle – and four leather-topped stools for about $1,700.
There are also bookcases, a coffee table and accessories that reflect the barrels’ curves, as well as a distinctive canoe wine center for $998. In the shape of a boat, it has shelves, a wine rack and a cabinet on the bottom.
“People who entertain will like this kind of furniture if they like that look,” Falabella says.
Apparently, a lot of people do.
Retailers such as the NapaStyle catalog have fed an appetite for furniture in which rustic wood meets contemporary styling – and not all of it comes from wine barrels.
NapaStyle carries a kitchen island that incorporates old barn wood and even corrugated metal from roofs. The metal becomes a wine rack. Another kitchen island features barrel staves.
The catalog also sells stools and a barn wood bed, made by Frank X. Casavant’s Moonlight Barnwood in Heidenheimer, Texas.
“We go out and we look for barns and work out deals with the farmers, where we can reclaim what we can from them,
because a lot of times they’ll wait until they’re falling down before they’ll actually do anything,” he says.
Casavant gets a kick out of thinking about where old Texas barns end up as he fills lots of NapaStyle orders.
“All the stuff that we make, it winds up in like thousands of homes all across the United States, just from one barn.”
