Barnwood: What would you pay?

[Thomas Colson]

Not a barn per say, but an outbuilding on a working farm. 1 story. About 50-ish 8 footers, and 50-ish 2-4 footers. 5/4 down to 7/8. 4-7 inches wide. White and/or chestnut oak, original old growth stuff, and my is it beautiful and figured when you S2S it! I'm trying to come to fair value. In these parts, the farmers know what they have, and competition to tear down barns is fierce, as is the street prices of the reclaimed wood. Farmer wants the building gone for an expansion of another building. However, labor is on me to get the wood off the building (about a day), de-nail it, etc...and pretty much every board has PBB in it, so it'd have to be treated. Access to a kiln is problematic. Eyeballing, I figure I can get half the total BF into something useable (picture frames, knick nacks, etc...) after cutting out the rotted ends, the really curvy stuff, bad checks, etc...

I've done this in the past with barnwood, I get what is reasonably usable, S2S it, fill any defects with black tinted epoxy, and thus becomes my random project wood. And it looks great! It's not for everybody I'm sure, but I like it, and I generally keep what I make for my own use.

Considering I'm sure this guy has many offers on the table (like I said, people are going nuts for barnwood around here!), but we're acquaintances (from work), what do you think would be fair? I'm not broke, but considering the labor involved in getting usable wood, there's a price point where I could simply buy it from the numerous folks around here that do this full time.

[Jebediah Eckert]

Man, I can’t imagine paying anything for it but to each his own. That is a ton of work, but you had me at powder post beetles. I’m not sure I would want it if all the nails were removed and dropped at my shop. Between the labor, dulling blades, nails, and bringing PPB to my shop......

I’m sure it’s nice stuff but around me there is a place that has a yard full of that stuff you can pick through for reasonable price. A friend wanted a trendy barn wood frame. I think I paid $10 for a 6’ long 12” wide board (some type of pine) that was still pretty decent and straight.

[Doug Dawson]

It depends on whether it tests positive for lead paint. If it does, I’d ask them to remediate that first, and then test again. So IOW, next to nothing if so. TOH probably did a segment on this at some point in the past.

[roger wiegand]

I'd let the folks who want to use it as is have it for whatever exorbitant price they are willing to pay for beat up bug infected wood. Good white oak is pretty cheap and abundant. For good chestnut, perhaps, but I'd look first at wood resawn from old beams without the bugs. Unless it's been kept in good maintenance there are probably deep checks that will require planing it down to almost nothing to get to a sound surface. These probably weren't FAS boards to begin with if it's like most barn siding I've seen.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

Years ago I bought a building like this, it was old doug fir though. The rancher actually disassembled and did a pretty good job of removing nails so I had a big stack of 1x10 and 12s, probably 100 16' and another 20 8'. Some was junk, some was pretty good rustic stuff. Took me 15 years, but I did run out finally. I paid $500 if I remember correctly. No PPB in it either. I'd think it'd be pretty easy to tent it and get the heat up to kill the buggers, but definitely that brings the price down. It's a popular look in this area too, and far more expensive now if you have to buy some real old patina for something. There is a sort of local mill now making a really good "barnwood" replica from ponderosa pine that we use quite a bit. I can see the bigger growth rings and spot it, but the customers don't seem to care. It sells for around $2.25/bf. Pic is it on a ceiling we did. Personally I'd offer a lump sum that makes you happy and skip the bf calculations. It just opens up too much negotiation room for the seller, and all they really want is no hassle usually anyhow.

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