Pat Hicks, President of New Life Hardwood Floors says, “"I love taking old stuff and refurnishing it so it can continue to be appreciated." What set them apart is that they not only salvage the flooring; they salvage all kinds of wood: floor and ceiling beams, studs, joists, framing, ship lap; almost everything.
“Most of the North Texas salvage structures yield pine,” Hicks says. This is not the pine you get at the big box stores. "The old stuff was harvested from virgin forests that grew years and years ago and is as hard as redwoods," he says. "Today's wood is soft, wet wood that's cut before it's mature."
So the dirty job begins. Hicks and his team pull the old wood from the reclamation sites and take it back to their southern Dallas warehouse to complete the labor-intensive process of removing nails, cutting it down to size and milling it to begin a “new life” as flooring. "It's disrespecting God when you take the lumber from trees that were 400 years old and throw it away," Hicks says. He has a deep respect for the wood and it shows when he talks about it. He loves reclaiming material. The beauty of what he does is that he sees something special where others see trash. If anyone is recycling or going green, it’s him.
"There are constantly things coming down to build new things," Hicks says. He salvaged six barns from the 1880’s in the Ohio River Valley that became 5,000 square feet of flooring for a Preston Hollow home. Walnut planks from an Appalachian auction house that was turned into a chicken house in Tennessee found their way to a Dallas family's Palm Springs home.
Hicks found White oak from a Pennsylvania barn that now calls North Dallas home. Hicks found the material for the eco-friendly, sustainable home that Lara and Stephen Harrison built. They've used reclaimed flooring throughout the home. "We wanted to use something that had already been used before," Lara Harrison says. "The wood has been through so much already, so it's hardier than new material." She loves the warn look and the strength of reclaimed flooring.
Hicks says, "People are worried about quality and value that last. The heritage of reclaimed floors goes with this new philosophy. Although the price of reclaimed flooring is determined by the scarcity and type of the material, it's competitive with new materials. New Life Hardwood Floors can run from less than $3 to $20 per foot.
Learn more at: http://www.newlifehardwoods.com/portfolio.html
People can really save a lot of money by using this reclaimed hardwood floors. All they need is a little creativity and it will be as good as new.
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