Who Buys Scrap Wood -

The most frequent visitor, however, was Maren. She arrived on a bicycle with a custom-built trailer. Maren was twenty-four, wore paint-spattered overalls, and ran an Etsy shop that sold "reclaimed" home decor.

"People pay fifty dollars for a 'rustic' centerpiece made of this," she told Elias, running a finger over the silvered grain. She looked for the "imperfections"—the nail holes, the insect tracks, and the staining from old bolts. To the industrial world, this wood was rotten. To Maren’s customers in the city, it was "character." She turned Elias’s floor-sweepings into wall art, floating shelves, and coaster sets. who buys scrap wood

Elias pointed to a pile of untreated pine and maple offcuts. For Miller, scrap wood wasn't art; it was survival. It was the kindling that would start his woodstove on a sub-zero February morning. He bought the "shorts" by the truckload, paying a fraction of what cordwood cost because he was willing to do the labor of hauling the odd shapes. In the economy of the mountains, scrap was heat. The most frequent visitor, however, was Maren