BERKELEYCALIFORNIA DOUGLAS fir logs, shipped to South Africa in the 19th century, are returning to the Bay Area to grace living rooms and bedrooms as recycled furniture.
The Wooden Duck, a Berkeley furniture manufacturer specializing in recycled wood, is expecting a shipment of furniture in May from Southern Exports of Durban, South Africa.
Between 1865 and 1890, when South Africa did not have the facilities to refine the gold, coal and iron ores it was mining, it shipped these resources to California. Because of the Gold Rush, California was well supplied with refining operations.
But on the return trip to Durban, Africa's largest seaport, vessels needed ballast to ply rough seas. So they acquired Douglas fir logs that had been felled in the Sierras and floated along to San Francisco's waterfront for loading.
Eventually, the South Africans used the Douglas fir they'd been stockpiling for construction, mostly as joists to support the roofs of warehouses. Currently, as the Durban waterfront is undergoing reconstruction, those warehouses are coming down and a huge supply of logs is becoming available, according to Eric Gellerman, one of the principles of The Wooden Duck.
Southern Exports, a marketing and sourcing company whose primary focus is the furniture market in the United Kingdom, is procuring the timbers to recycle as furniture for export.
According to the dealer, Douglas fir was once considered a waste timber in South Africa, but now is highly prized.
When the exporters sent him a photograph of a sample, Gellerman could confirm that the pine they were offering him was indeed California Douglas fir of the 19th century.
"We know immediately when we look at the grain that's Douglas fir from California. That age period doesn't exist in South Africa. ... No doubt about it, we work with it every day. It's our life," he said.
Southern Exports had found The Wooden Duck by doing an Internet search for recycled furniture manufacturers. Gellerman transmitted 58 computer-aided designs of the company's more than 500 designs to Southern Exports by air courier and e-mail.
"The type of collaboration we had would not have been possible without AutoCAD (computer-aided design) or e-mail," the Berkeley entrepreneur said. "Impossible to be that detailed with hand drawings. Impossible to wait for photos in the snail mail. We didn't even speak on the phone except for twice since last June."
It took eight months of e-mailing drawings and pictures back and forth to assure him that The Wooden Duck and Southern Exports were in harmony.
"We had to make sure the angles of the legs were correct, the patina of the wood (was) not too planed, not too rough, nail holes were pegged, etc." he explained.
In February, Gellerman went to Durban and met Peter and Douglas Comrie, principles of Southern Exports. They subcontract out the manufacturing to another craftsman whose operation Gellerman toured. He was pleased to see they used the same machines his company uses and he inspected samples they'd prepared for him.
The Wooden Duck's order is now in production. The first shipment will be loaded onto a vessel April 8 for an early May arrival.
Now he wishes he'd given them even more orders, Gellerman said. His plant in Berkeley has a showroom, a factory and a refinishing site. The factory employs 12 workers and The Wooden Duck's capacity is constrained.
"It's worth it to us because our factory is small and fully booked. We're doing custom orders and can't really do production like we want to," he said.
Gellerman and his partner, Amy Weber, started the Wooden Duck in 1995 to import furniture from Indonesia made of the teak from demolished houses and other structures. Hence the term, recycled furniture.
Gellerman had been a student of the Malay language through the University of California, Berkeley's education abroad program. And Java is where he started his career in carpentry and furniture.
Indonesia is still a manufacturing source for them. Hungary, Slovakia and Poland are also sources of recycled pine furniture.Today, The Wooden Duck builds furniture itself from Douglas fir, culled from Pacific Northwest barns and warehouses that have been torn down.
Finding sources for these logs isn't too hard. The salvage organizations who acquire these materials are familiar with the handful of recycled furniture makers in California and their particular niches. Gellerman gets calls from them a couple times a month.
He puts The Wooden Duck in the middle price range among builders of furniture. A five-foot-long dining table may cost between $875 and $915. Bookcases range between $425 and $1,250. A trundle double bed can go as high as $1,325.
It is attractive to new home buyers and those just starting families who are buying their first set of tables, chairs, beds and armoires.
In his showroom, Gellerman's 11-month-old jumbo-sized Bernese pup, Jack, lazes on an Indonesian teak lounge chair. Frequently, Jack lumbers through the factory, indulged and tolerated by the carpenters. Just as often he submits himself to the delight of customers.
"Jack makes a lot of sales for us," Gellerman said.