John Haling has been sawing Michigan hardwood since 1998

The shop opened in 1998 and has been sawing ever since. Most of the wood that passes through it started as a tree somewhere nearby: a yard tree taken down after a storm, a street tree removed for a road project, a windfall from a customer's own property.

Trees like that rarely make it to a commercial mill. They are short, wide, forked, sometimes full of character that a production mill treats as a defect. Those are the logs John is set up for — and the reason people drive their own logs here rather than sending them to a chipper.

What "urban timber" actually means

Urban timber is wood recovered from trees that grew in towns, yards and roadsides rather than in a managed forest. Recovering it keeps usable hardwood out of the burn pile and gives the wood a second life as furniture, countertops, mantels and shelving.

The shop

Sawing, vacuum kiln drying, planing, sanding and jointing all happen in one place, so a log can go from round to a flat, dry, ready-to-build slab without leaving the property. Work is by appointment — call first so John can tell you what to bring and when.

Craftsmanship and sustainability

Nothing here is mass produced. Each log is opened based on what's inside it, and slabs are dried slowly and carefully so they stay stable once they're in a home. Milling local trees that would otherwise be waste is the most straightforward kind of sustainability there is.