Making the Old New Again

Reclaimed wood proves to be design trend with staying power

BY KRIS BEVILL

Seth Carlson didn’t set out to be a design trendsetter for the region. The Casselton, N.D., native had simply started a small reclaimed wood furniture company while he was still attending college in Duluth, Minn., which grew well beyond his expectations. He operated the business for a couple of years after school, but burned out and left it all behind to indulge in a second passioncycling - thinking he had left his reclaimed wood experience in the past.

After traveling the country for two years, he returned to Fargo, where he learned that the company he had purchased wood from for his furniture business had closed, and he had the opportunity to buy the remaining reclaimed wood product from the bank. It was an opportunity he couldn’t pass up. He soon found himself back in the reclaimed wood business, though he intended for the return to a be a temporary one.

“I was just going to sell that [stock] and be done,” he says.

The Fargo market had other ideas, however. Carlson says the reclaimed wood sold so quickly that he realized the potential demand might support a long-term