Reclaimed Wood Cabinetry in Jacksonville, FL

Most of a salvage pile never becomes reclaimed wood cabinets. We look at thickness, species and how the board lived.

Good candidates: heart pine joists out of pre-1940 Springfield and Riverside houses, cypress siding, sinker cypress, oak barn framing trucked down from Georgia.

Bad candidates: painted boards from before 1978, anything that sat in ground contact, pressure treated lumber and pallet wood. A board that started at 3/4 inch thick will not survive milling either. Start at 5/4 or thicker.

Salvaged wood cabinets go through a fixed sequence, and skipping a step is how the job goes wrong.

Hand de-nailing comes first, and old framing nails snap off below the surface constantly. Metal detection is second: every board passes a detector before it goes near a planer, because one hidden nail head takes out a set of knives.

Kiln drying is third, and in Florida it is not optional. Old wood carries powderpost beetle larvae and termite activity, and heat is the only reliable way to kill what is inside a board. A sterilization schedule typically holds the core near 133 degrees for about 30 minutes, then brings moisture content to roughly 6 to 8 percent. We do not build with unverified stock.

Milling is last: rip, joint, plane, then let the wood move before final dimensioning. Old boards release tension and bow the day after coming off flat.

Yield is the answer. New hardwood puts roughly 70 to 80 percent of a board into the job. Barn wood cabinetry runs well below that.

A job needing 100 board feet of finished material starts with 250 to 300 board feet of salvage, plus de-nailing labor and kiln time you pay for either way. Reclaimed lands 30 to 60 percent above new hardwood. You are buying color and saw marks no finish reproduces, which is a real thing to want. It is not a savings.

Use it as a feature, not the whole kitchen. Rustic wood cabinets built entirely from salvage read heavy, and texture that works on one island panel looks like a barn across 30 linear feet.

For a bath we build a clean custom vanity with one reclaimed front panel. The same logic applies to farmhouse cabinetry: one reclaimed element beats a room of it.

Antique wood cabinetry needs a finish that protects without erasing the patina. A gloss topcoat turns a hundred year old surface into plastic.

We use a penetrating or hardwax oil on shelving and panels, and a matte conversion varnish where the surface takes daily abuse. A 10 to 20 sheen keeps the texture honest.

Nail holes get judged one by one. Anything within reach of food splatter gets filled with dark epoxy so it stays visible but cleanable. Sanding stays light, since heavy sanding removes what you paid for.

We start with the wood, not the drawing. Send photos with a tape in frame and we will tell you the usable percentage before quoting. If you have no source, we can find one.

De-nailing, detection and kiln add two to four weeks before shop work starts. Then we lay the parts out so you approve board placement. Plan on eight to fourteen weeks.

Species drives the number, since heart pine and sinker cypress are scarce. These are typical Northeast Florida ranges rather than a quote, and we price after we see the wood.