Post-and-rail, privacy and paddock fencing in drawknifed locust. The wood outlasts pressure-treated pine several times over, and it does it without a coat of anything.
Rails and balustrades for porches, decks and stairs. Locust is the hardest wood in North America, which is exactly what you want under a hand that leans on it every day.
Arbors, arches and wedding structures — locust posts under a sprung top, filled in with the branch work the tree gave us. The pieces people photograph.
The part of the fence everybody actually touches. Gates, entry structures, latches and hardware — hung so they still swing true after a few winters.
Covered entries, porch extensions and garden structures framed in locust. Heavy timber that carries a roof and still reads as part of the woods it came from.
Benches, tables, shelving and smaller pieces. Indoors, drawknifed locust runs twenty years and up — with a little care, a good deal longer than that.
Pergolas, trellises, garden frames, signage, something you sketched on the back of an envelope. Locust does not care what shape you want it in, and after a lifetime of this neither do we. If you can describe it, we can tell you honestly whether it should be built from this wood — and what it would take.
No two locust jobs price the same. Length of run, grade, terrain, how much of it you want left barked and how gnarled a piece you are after all move the number — which is why the estimate is free and the quote that follows it is fixed.
Taking the bark off the tree, and the outer grain layers with it — the soft layer on black locust, the less-sturdy layer on yellow. It is slow, it is done by hand, and it is the reason a locust fence outlives the person who ordered it.
Seasoned standing, from a dying or dead tree the woods has already worked on. Harder than yellow, and it gives up the gnarliest, most characterful pieces we build with. Black on the outer layer, still gold the whole way through. Cream of the crop.
Cut live. Not as hard as black and it will not stand as long, but it is beautiful wood and it takes a design cleanly. Both grades are yellow inside — one is simply brighter than the other.
Drawknifing takes the bark off and the softer outer layers with it, down to wood that will not rot in a hurry. It is the reason a locust fence lasts. Some people want the bark left on anyway, for the look, and we will build it that way — but barked work is inferior to barkless in every measure of longevity, and it typically needs sections replaced every two to five years. If that is the look you want, the maintenance plan is how you keep it.
Not every call is a whole new run. Plenty of them are one leaning post, a gate that stopped latching, or a piece you have drawn on the back of an envelope and want made real.
Locust is the craft, but it is not the whole trade. We build in ordinary lumber, pressure-treated, chainlink and composite too — inside the house and out — and we do the groundwork that goes with it.
Not every run wants locust, and we will say so. Standard board, pressure-treated, chainlink and composite — built to the same line and the same standard.
Framing, decking, steps and rails. New builds and tear-outs of whatever the last winter finished off.
Exterior siding and trim, and the interior carpentry that never quite made it onto anybody's list. Inside the home and out.
Screening a porch in, closing a carport up, penning something off. The jobs that turn an outdoor space into one you will actually sit in come July.
Mulching, pavers, planting and mowing. Usually the difference between a finished fence and a finished yard.
If we are already on your property with the truck, the tools and the crew, it makes very little sense for you to go and find three more people to finish the job around us. So we do the rest of it. One number to call, one crew who knows what the ground looks like, and nobody standing in your driveway blaming somebody else's work.
Twice a year, quarterly or monthly. We walk the whole property and replace what has started to go before it spreads — locust and everything else we have built for you.
No mystery, no runaround. Four steps from the first walk of the property to the last rail set.
We come out, walk the line or the room, and talk through what the piece has to do. You will hear a straight answer about whether locust is the right wood for it.
Itemised — material, grade, labour and haul-away spelled out, and the bark question settled in writing. The number you sign is the number you pay.
Stock gets picked for the job, then drawknifed down past the bark and the soft outer layers. This is the part that takes the time and it is the part that decides how long the work lasts.
We set it, we walk it with you, and we clean up behind us. If you have taken the maintenance plan, the first visit gets scheduled before we leave.
That is exactly what the visit is for. We'll walk the line, talk through black against yellow and bark on against bark off, and you will know before you spend anything.