[brc]

Nice. In terms of buying the raw materials - you should find if there is a specialty supplier in your area. You can get a lot more interesting cuts and species from those, especially if you're working on relatively small scale projects. The major stores are optimized around people buying lots for bigger projects. You might even be able to find a sawmill somewhere that is willing to sell direct.

Also, don't forget...they're just trees. You can get them milled yourself and get your own wood. My brother in law saw an old oak tree get cut down for a new factory. It had a nice, solid straight log. He approached them (they were going to chip it) and asked that, if he had it removed within 24 hours, could he have it? They said yes, and were happy. He got a truck to pick it up, and delivered to his house. He then got a portable sawmill contractor (these are a framed saw that sit around the log and mill it in place, rather than feeding the log through a stationary mill). They then stacked the green wood in the yard (correctly spaced for airing) and covered it with a tarp and an old sheet of roofing iron. A couple of years later it was good to go. About 10-15% was warped and useless but he got lots - and I mean lots - of fantastic oak all cut too sizes he wanted. From this he worked (and is still working) on building furniture - sideboards, table, a 'piece' chair, as well as trimming for his mantelpiece and a lot of other things. He could have sold the surplus for a healthy profit, but instead chooses to keep some and give away others to people who are interested.

If you enjoy the process of choosing the right pieces, you'd love the process of actually selecting a tree and then turning that into long-lasting, quality furniture that will outlast you.

EDIT: On that point, some timber is near-impossible to obtain now because of logging restrictions. However, sometimes individual trees are cleared from urban areas that would never be allowed to be removed from a forest. If you learn what the trees look like you might get lucky one day.

[dfc]

In re: Municipal Trees

Make contact with your city arborist. They know/pick when the nice old trees are getting cut down and if you get lucky you might be the only one who has inquired about reclaiming the wood.

Forestry service is pushing reclaiming/recycling municipal wood as a enviromental win and a local jobs win: http://www.na.fs.fed.us/Spfo/pubs/misc/utilizingmunitrees/in... http://www.na.fs.fed.us/pubs/tps/recycle/recycling_trees.pdf