All of our reclaimed wood products have history, a story of where the wood came from and what purpose it served. Depending on the product, the story can be incredibly specific–like the timbers from the Welland Canal that measure 37″ x 42″ x 48′ long. And sometimes a product is a collection of stories that together make a whole, like our American Prairie line.

Black & Tan, a reclaimed oak product, is no exception. For those that are equestrian minded, you may recognize the specific black paint that you’ll find on this mottled product. Our Black & Tan collection comes from reclaimed oak fence boards gathered in America’s horse country.

Mostly from Kentucky, miles and miles of fence roll through bluegrass pastures. Many may imagine it in white, but the fencing is more often painted black for maintenance and cost reasons. (Painting a fence white can be 3x the cost of black over time and needs to be repainted twice as often).

When we salvage Black & Tan, each board is layered with eco and animal-friendly black paint that we celebrate in three grades: Black & Tan—Tan, Black & Tan—50/50, and Black & Tan—Black.

Our Black & Tan—Black product, where we clean the boards up a bit and leave the paint as in-tact as possible, is great for exterior uses. Given the oak’s strength underneath, and the years of weathering outside, it’s stable and striking in black.

With Black & Tan—50/50, we plane down some of the paint (hence the name) and allow the black to show in organic swaths with the bright tones of the freshly sawn oak underneath. Because no two planks are alike, and they have natural variation in thickness, each board has a different level of surfacing, resulting in truly random areas of untouched black paint.

Black & Tan—Tan leaves the paint only in the crevasses and fissures that our planers can’t touch. The play of the dark paint buried deep in the warm tones highlights the prominent grain patterns, rays, and pores of the oak. The textural interest and occasional reminders of its past life give this otherwise ‘clean grade’ enough character to identify there’s more to its story.

This past year we celebrated a decade of selling our Black & Tan products. We’ve salvaged over 300 miles of planks (or 1.5 million linear feet) which have been installed in places ranging from Doc Marten stores, to high-end hotels, to private residences. The consistent width of this product (it comes in 4″ or 5″), along with the regular lengths make it an affordable favorite.

We like it because you simply cannot mistake it for a fresh oak—its signs of previous life are a give away that it’s something more. It is incredibly versatile; we can get really creative with it in large or small batches. For horse lovers, or not, this reclaimed collection harkens to the rolling greens and a far-off gallop–a fun history to share with your guests.

Read more about Black & Tan in our previous post.