Washington Lumber - Bear Creek Lumber Sales Team Blog

Something unusual in the yard. Side-curved specialty glulams made from clear Port Orford Cedar. Just goes to show, we can do the odd, the unusual and hard to find items.

We have just finished upgrading our blog, so we invite you to check back often since we will be updating it regularly.

Thanks!

The Web Guy

On my return home from a recent trip to the Hamptons , my flight brought me close to home. Unfortunately, not close enough. My flight path took me just south of the Methow Valley, which is home for Bear Creek Lumber . I could see it, but I would be hours away from touching home. After landing at Sea-Tac airport, I had a 4+ hour drive through beautiful mountains, along winding rivers and finally to our home on the east slopes of the North Cascades mountains. Here are a couple of photos from that flight. You are seeing Glacier Peak, with Mt Baker off in the distance. These are two of the five volcanoes that are in the State of Washington.

Enjoy,
Merle

I spent the first week of June back in “The Hamptons” on Long Island, NY. I must say the area is very beautiful, exceeding my expectations. I went and visited many jobs, both under construction and completed. Many of the projects featured [url=http://www.bearcreeklumber.com/projects/cedar_pergolas/index.html]Western Red Cedar pergolas[/url] and fences. Thank you Doug for taking me around to the many great jobs you have done.

Beautiful Western Red Cedar fence and shingles

Western Red Cedar fence and Deco Turf tennis court

Contractor Andy MacEachern of A.S. MacEachern Contracting sent in some photos of a project in Hingham, MA. This is some restoration work done on the Old Ship Church. This is the oldest church still in use in the United States, it was built in 1681. It was placed on the National Historic Register in 1960, more information is available @ National Park Service. When the stairs needed to be replaced, Andy came to Bear Creek Lumber for clear vertical grain Alaskan Yellow Cedar. Will these stairs last another 326 years? Stay tuned.

One of the best things about living here is the 3 plus months of skiing we can enjoy locally.  The NY Times published a very favorable article in the Feb 18, 2007 Travel section about our Nordic trail system.   About half of the staff ski weekends, before work, after work.  Some are MVSTA Ski Patrol volunteers.   Every year one or two more BCL employees purchase ski gear and join in the fun.

A few times a year the boss invites us up to Sun Mountain for pizza and refreshments prior to an exciting night ski back down to WInthrop.  Though not for the faint of heart, it is a kick-ass ride.

We encourage each other to finish a grueling climb and then just as fast share in laughter when one of us craters in the middle of the trail.

We are collectively approaching a race-ready status and we plan to start competing in the local races held every winter.

Snowshoe-softball looks like it would be fun too.

On Friday 2/16, Hector (our webmaster) and I (salesman Merle) went and visited some jobsites of Lost River Construction. We took many photos of jobs under construction and some that where completed and being lived in. Stay tuned for a future web feature of Lost River Construction. Here is a photo of Hector and the Lost River crew. Thanks to Phil for showing us around. See more photos here Lost River Construction Photo Gallery

To our faithful blog readers we bring a preview of the March specials, courtesy of your Webmaster. Remember that these specials will be honored from March 1st to March 31st.

SPECIALS MARCH 07

BOAT BUILDERS
MAHOGANY 4/4XR/W FAS ROUGHC KD $4.00 / BF
MAHOGANY 8/4XR/W FAS ROUGHC KD $4.00 / BF
PORT ORFORD 4X6 & 4X8 CLEAR ROUGH CUT PAD $4.90 /BF
YELLOW CEDAR 2X6 CLEAR ROUGH DRY $5.00 / BF

DECKING
IPE 5/4X6 CLEAR S4S $3.00 / LF.
AYC 5/4X5 CLEAR S4S $1.83 / LF
WRC 2X6 STK S4S $1.90 / LF

REMAN
WESTERN RED CEDAR 5/4X6  CLEAR  ROUGH CUT 2í TO 6í $1.44 / LF
WESTERN RED CEDAR 2X6 CLEAR ROUGH CUT 3í TO 8í $2.50 / LF
PORT ORFORD CEDAR CLEAR ROUGH BLUE STAINING $3.33 / LF
YELLOW CEDAR CURVED AND TWISTED 2X2 AND LARGE,  S4S AND ROUGH, STK & CLEAR $1.85 / BOARD FOOT.
TEAK FEQ ROUGH DRY 4/4 & 8/4 X R/W $13.00 / BF

Have a great one!

Ever since we began importing exotic species of lumber and reclaimed lumber to our Winthrop, Washington plant we have picked up interesting and never before seen critters, objects, substances, nests and high-viscus matter which to this day has us stumped as to origin, toxicity and flammability.  Well, maybe not flammability, they yard guys will burn most anything if left alone for long periods of time.

Our array of exotic species from the continents of Africa, South America and Australia arrive on our shores harboring some wild looking spiders, grubs, random paper and mud and sludge and muck.   Believe it or not there are some applications which call for the lumber in its as is state.

For the most part the guys in the yard have to scrape, de-nail, power-wash, trim, shape, sand and sort through tons of lumber to produce orders when particular care to select for appearance, grain, length and coloration is specified.

Its a dirty job sometimes.

A dirty job that pays in creative ways.

After consecutive days of tallying loads and loads of lumber I found we have quite a selection of lumber species.   Mahogany, Teak, Ipe, Jatoba, all the White woods you can imagine and cedar and recalimed redwood and douglas fir.   I saw vertical grain pieces so dense it was tough to get a GR/I (growth rings per inch) estimate.

Our snow is yeilding to a heated asphalt surface.  Our lifts and trucks can access virtually all of our inventory.   The two southern rack buildings are bursting with fir board stock and  dry Alaskan yellow cedar clears in many widths and lengths.

KD Yellow cedar stock remains in the South yard and all the clear WRC 4x timbers are forward just beyond the sales office.

Random width hardwoods dominate the inside of the warehouse along with high-grade firs and redwood offerings.