Hi folks. I was recently introduced to a woman whose husband passed away a year ago and left behind a large stash of lumber.
When I went to her house, I was expecting to find a charity case of 2x4s. What I ran into was two large mixed piles of skip-planed hardwood. A lot is wide (>14”) 4/4 beech, but there’s also a fair amount of wide and thick (8/4, 12/4) white oak, plus Spanish cedar or mahogany and some random exotics…all mixed in with the occasional 2x6 from Home Depot. Most seems to be 10-12 feet long.
At first I thought about just grabbing a few sticks for myself and going on my way, but the piles were impossible for one person to sift, and I found myself wanting to do more to help this woman out. I lost my dad nine months ago and this woman is right where my mom is. She wants to get rid of this giant mess under her deck, but she also wants to honor her husband by not just giving it away his treasured stash to the first guy with a flat bed.
The problem is that it’s sort of precisely the wrong amount of wood. It’s way too much for an individual hobbyist to deal with. Certainly too much for me--it would probably take me a full day and a hernia just to un-pile it, and she can’t deal with dozens of random lowballing craigslisters who want a deal on a single board. On the other hand, it’s a messy pile of uncertain lumber in a tiny alley; I doubt any commercial outfit would want it.
Any advice, creekers? FWIW, this is in the DC metropolitan area. I’m attaching a few pictures. For scale, the widest boards are ~16" wide.
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