Wood Barn

We drove down to the sawmill we’d used several times for exciting and slightly more bespoke wood slabs. They weren’t cheap but always had high quality, local timber on offer. When we arrived and told the owner what we were looking for he immediately pointed out they had some beautiful English cherry that was now ready and available. We made a bee line for that and instantly fell in love.

It was perfect, so we reserved our choice of slab. The owner asked if we wanted him to draw knife the live edge and plane and sand it flat on his new rig. We agreed to pay for this and settled on a time scale for delivery.

In the intervening weeks I got an email to say that the edges had been sorted but they were having trouble with their new set up and it was all taking much longer than he’d anticipated to flatten it off. He remarked that as a result, it would all cost a good deal more as they’d had to put in so many extra hours! I politely explained that he’d sent me a written quote/invoice for the deposit and balance which specifically included flattening and I wasn’t paying any more than we’d agreed. It was already a very expensive piece of lumber!

Imagine my surprise when I received a further email explaining the process of flattening, how difficult it was for them and that the cost had indeed inflated a lot to cover for their time. At this point, I got angry. I replied again, pointing out that his troubles were not any of my concern. He’d given me a price for the slab including flattening, we agreed it, I’d paid a deposit based on it and he was going to deliver my wood and I was only paying what we agreed.

That, sadly, wasn’t the end of it. He mailed again arguing that was not what he’d agreed and I could either get a refund for my deposit or pay £100’s more. This time, I let loose in my reply. I quoted his own invoice and his wording and said that a court would have no hesitation in agreeing with me that he was in violation of our contract. I also stated that I’d purchased quite a bit of expensive timber from him over the past 3 years and he was now ruining the relationship with a good customer. Being that they’re a small mill, I thought that even I would have some impact locally.

In an unexpected turn of events, I received a phone call the next day. He was extremely contrite and apologised profusely for his attitude and correspondence. I could “of course” have my cherry slab, delivered as paid for and at the agreed price. Quite what the change of heart was due to I don’t know. Maybe a call to his solicitor, maybe a chat with colleagues or friends, or maybe a blast of common sense, who knows.

A week later, he delivered the slab and helped me carry it into the house. To say I was disappointed was an understatement. It was less than half the thickness it had been, had tear out from poor planing, the feature knot we’d so loved on first viewing was now a poorly epoxied scar. Due to its now reduced thickness the whole piece was also warping badly. I left it in the room we put it in and couldn’t look at it for a couple of weeks while we completed the rest of the office. I was that pissed off.

The time came when we couldn’t put it off any longer so our builder and I went to look at what we could do with it. He was incandescent with rage on our behalf and it took a while to calm him down about it. With that achieved we tried to look at it objectively. My attitude was, if it was beyond saving and we had to trash it, we had to trash it. I’d deal with the aftermath with the mill later. The whole thing was now tainted anyway and what should have been an exciting stage in our makeover was now spoiled. I wasn’t willing to compromise our new room as a result of their incompetence.

We decided that we’d try to stick with our original plan of creating two desks, one large, one smaller but we’d adjust the lengths and chop it in a different place due to its instability. Not perfect but a plan. Thankfully, they hadn’t reduced it’s length!