Page 6 - Flathead Beacon // 2.5.14

6 | FEBRUARY 5, 2014
NEWS
FLATHEADBEACON.COM

Beauty

in the

Potential

by MOLLY PRIDDY

PHOTOS BY GREG LINDSTROM

Kalispell craftsman uses local

barnwood for his furnishing creations

CRESTON – Oftentimes, and especially used to build the barn in the 1890s if he put
in this corner of Montana, the beauty of this in the labor to remove it. Most of the barn is
world is obvious and immediate, but there are made from old-growth ir, likely put into place
other times when it takes an artist to drag the while it was still green, rendering the pieces
beauty out into the light for those of us who that have never seen the sun a dusty shade of
cannot see it in ordinary objects as plainly as red.

they do.
Up close, the wood shows the clear paths
It can mean taking a lump of formless clay of circular saws used to form the planks and
and turning it into an ornate vase, or releas- the old-growth hardwood has tight grain pat-
ing the statue inside a hunk of marble. Seeing terns, a signiicant diference from the boards
the potential is what compels creation, and made from young trees carved up with band-
Kalispell’s Katch Hadley is a prime example saw mills.
of those who mine for diamonds in the rough.
Hadley, 25, recently started his new busi-
ABOVE: Katch Hadley gathers tools to remove wood from a barn
Last week, Hadley and Rene Gardner ness, Big Sky Barnwood Furnishings, after in Creston on Jan. 29. Hadley uses the wood he removes from
stood on the snowy loorboards of a Creston discovering he has a knack for turning old old barns to make custom furniture for his company, Big Sky
barn’s hayloft and started what would likely barn wood into furniture, picture frames, Barnwood Furnishings.
be a long day of removing the rafters under a hardwood loors, chairs and more.
steady barrage of snow. The tin roof was al- It started three years ago, when his father- TOP: Saw marks can be seen in the grain of wood beams Katch
ready of the building, which Hadley found on in-law needed to remove a barn from his West Hadley has in storage in his shop. Hadley thinks he has enough
Craigslist.
Valley farm. Hadley kept the old wood, seeing wood currently to build 30-40 tables.
The owner wanted to get rid of the build- its potential.

ing, and Hadley could have all the old wood
“I saved all that wood and started building