Ben Johnson and Kelli Carlson, Scandia, describe the potential of a discarded wood scrap. Johnson founded Wood that Could, which turns reclaimed wood and metal into furniture and decorative pieces.
“A local guy was selling a barn, and we decided to buy it, tear it down, and see what we could do with the reclaimed wood,” says Johnson. “Now that’s gotten scaled up and we have wood contracts out west. We ship a lot of our wood out to the Reno-Tahoe area. They use it for new, high-end home construction.
“We like that it’s not only beautiful, but we’re saving trees from getting cut down. We’re reusing something that was going to get burned, thrown away or buried. A lot of farmers either take a match to their barn or have somebody remove it and it ends up in a landfill.”