If you’ve been following along with us here on AH for a while, you know the demolition of neighborhood houses has been a sad theme. We’ve struggled to come to terms with the loss of homes we’ve known and that have been part of the fabric of the neighborhood for a century.

Alameda resident Timothy Curry-Stevens reuses old wood from neighborhood demolitions to create beautiful furniture, which he donates to local charities.

This week, we came across a silver lining in the person of Alameda resident Timothy Curry-Stevens. He’s a furniture maker with a carpentry shop in his garage and an unending supply of old and beautiful wood retrieved from neighborhood tear downs.

Timothy translates demo wreckage into functional and beautiful furniture he donates to worthy causes like the Community Warehouse, Catholic Charities and the Refugee Resettlement project. His carpentry helps make sure refugee and low-income families have a kitchen table to gather around, and benches for family members to pull up to the table.

He has repurposed ceiling joists, stair treads, shiplap, skip sheathing and just about every kind of wood that comes out of an old house, transforming it all into beautiful table tops and sturdy legs. He’s become expert at nail pulling, hole filling, gluing, trimming and finishing the beautiful old wood. Tight-grained wood from old-growth Douglas-fir trees built this neighborhood in the last century and when Timothy gets his hands on it, he releases the natural glow and grain.

Timothy Curry-Stevens built these two tables with wood from a 1925 bungalow that was demolished in January at 31st and Siskiyou. He donates his furniture to a local charity.

His most recent project (two small dining room tables) came from the early January tear down just around the corner from him at the corner of 31st and Siskiyou. Everyone in the neighborhood knew the 1925 house was being torn down, and was dreading it. He had seen other demolitions where the materials were broken, splintered and piled high before being hauled off in dump trucks. So Timothy tracked down the company doing the demo and asked the excavator operator if he would be willing to set aside some of the old wood. He was happily surprised by the willing response.

“I met him the day they started,” he recalls. “Over that day and the next he set out for me to lug home 36 2×8 joists from the first floor ceiling, 10, 12, and 14 feet long, plus lots of other assorted boards. Took me a week to get all the nails pulled!”

Once the nails were pulled, Timothy sawed the boards to meet his needs, glued the pieces together to create a laminated top, carefully manufactured the legs and assembled all the pieces. In less than a month, day by day, Timothy transformed the wood from wreckage to furniture.

Originally from Massachusetts, Timothy didn’t grow up around any natural carpenters. It wasn’t until working on a wildfire crew in central Idaho as a young man that he gained experience with carpentry—fixing wood trim on the fire crew buildings and moving a barn—that he found he really enjoyed working wood with his hands.

Timothy’s retired now, and one of the things that gives great meaning to the pace and feel of his days is working with this wood. He’s converted a garage into a woodshop with table saw, tools, work bench and a woodstove. A nice place to spend time. Half of the garage holds salvaged wood and at the moment it’s pretty full.

Timothy is humble about his work: it’s just his way of having purpose and mission while giving back and making something good from loss. Thank you Timothy.