At Timber Revival, ‘waste not, want not’ is not just a sustainability mantra, it’s a business opportunity and community service. Husband and wife team, Aaron and Bree McKirdy get excited when they hear of a demolition happening in their midst. When the Melbourne Theatre Company’s production headquarters was coming down, Aaron couldn’t wait to inspect the salvageable timbers. Today, that wood – and the precious anecdotes around it – are for sale in Timber Revival’s yard. Bree uncovers the tales behind their reclaimed stock and creates provenance cards that inform and engage potential buyers.
Timber Revival’s growing band of enthusiastic customers don’t just shop there for the new, rough sawn and recycled timber and exquisite furniture. Aaron’s background as a carpenter and furniture designer and craftsman amply equips him with deep insight into working with wood as an aesthetic, multi-sensory medium. Add to that, Bree’s capacity to speak the lingo and infuse customers’ experiences with her own warmth and passion and you have a winning formula. Aaron and Bree function as professional yin and yang across the office, yard and floor, and customers benefit tremendously from their combined perspectives.
Bree says Timber Revival enjoys a similar relationship with Accurate. “To me, the fact that Accurate has quite a few women on their team and they can competently discuss complex woodworking machinery and tooling is really refreshing.”
The company has attained FSC, PEFC and Responsible Wood certification, the holy trinity of sustainability accreditation. “We’re very conscious of making choices that are aligned with our beliefs and the majority of our customer base shares them.” Bree explains.
“Also, we’re an advisory service as much as a timber supplier,” Aaron says. “Whatever they’re looking for and whatever they need to do with it, we have the products and the answers. Someone might enquire about one product but once we have a conversation, they often end up purchasing four or five different elements for their project.”
Melbourne-based Timber Revival specialise in capturing a story about recycled and reclaimed Australian hardwoods and adding new chapters. The story continues for recycled blackbutt flooring used in the refurbishment of Williamstown Town Hall. Recycled messmate blend from the Tottenham Munitions Stores was repurposed for tables and the large curved bartop at the Victoria Hotel, Footscray.
