Photos courtesy of Room & Board
Room & Board’s Urban Wood Project, through which the furniture retailer partners with city businesses to design and manufacture home décor from reclaimed wood, has now added new products from Minneapolis. Through a collaboration with Wood from the Hood, Room & Board has launched a new line of Orlin tables made from downed or harvested ash trees in the Minneapolis area.
“The City of Minneapolis has been taking down ash trees to prevent the spread of the emerald ash borer,” explains Gene Wilson, Room & Board’s vice president of merchandising and vendor management. Wood from the Hood was having trouble using all the ash they received. The Orlin coffee and dining tables “ensure Wood from the Hood can use a higher percentage of the ash they’re getting from Minneapolis.”
According to Brian Linehan, Room & Board’s manager of merchandise and design, Wood from the Hood is also using the ash to create dimensional lumber (wood prepared in pre-determined sizes). “It’s a great resource for us, and the fact that they’re creating dimensional lumber with reclaimed urban trees is really unique,” he says. “It also aligns with our company’s messaging on sustainability. The sky’s the limit on how we could grow with this.”
The Orlin line’s clean design also “goes back to the origins of the wood,” Linehan says. “Minneapolis has a robust Scandinavian heritage that people really fall behind. When we started sketching out ideas for Orlin we wanted to reference classic Scandinavian design elements like understated joinery, tapered legs with angular lines, and soft corners with beveled undersides. It’s timeless design.”
Released on August 17, the Orlin line is just the beginning of what Room & Board hopes will be a long collaboration with Wood from Hood. “We worked together to refine the vision of the Orlin line,” Wilson says. “It’s a great partnership, and we really enjoy creating beautiful products with partners.”
