The majority of our window and door trim is re-milled Douglas fir.

We ordered "character grade", which is the lowest quality (and in our view the most interesting), and received the wood with all the bad pieces still intact. These "waste" pieces (far left) often still has usable chunks. Even on this particularly bad piece the lower right section would probably make a near perfect 3" by 24" board.  By carefully laying out the board, we were able to make much better use of the wood than if the sawmill had cut all the "bad" pieces out for us.

A sill showing minor defects (near left).  We use the term "wabi-sabi", which is a Japanese word implying patina, or character for these pieces.

Many of the boards were characteristic tight vertical grain old growth, which is difficult to come by now (right). We put in a Wainscot made from miss-cut bead-board in the powder room (below).