The Kindest Cut

When a house was built recently in the Seattle area, some of the cleared trees ended up back on the property--as furniture, doors, and flooring in the new home. Urban Hardwoods specializes in turning the dead, decaying, or in-the-way city trees cut down by the thousands each year into distinctive contemporary furniture. Defects in the wood likewise become assets. "Rot can be quite beautiful if you catch it at the right time," says lead designer John Wells. "It leaves incredible patterns."

(Photograph by John Granen)