Imagine building a barn with 30 – 40 foot long hardwood beams, high in the air and fit together precisely with mortise and tenon joints, then pinned with whittled wooden dowels. Sounds tough enough. Now imagine doing it with no chainsaw, no electric tools, and no cranes or hydraulic lifts!

With every barn we deconstruct we gain a renewed respect for the craftsmen that built them, sometimes 100 years or more in the past. And there’s nothing quite like the vintage timbers that were used to make beams, or the rich aged patina they’ve developed over all those years of use.

Our barn beams typically come from buildings we (or our associates) have deconstructed in a relatively small area, including parts of western Wisconsin and eastern Minnesota. Our inventory is comprised of numerous wood species generally found in the woods surrounding the barn – red or white oak, pine, fir, poplar, maple, elm, ash or others. (If the tree was tall and straight, it was a likely candidate for becoming part of a new barn!)

In the gallery, check out some of the uses our customers have made of barn beams they’ve acquired from us.