Old Town Timber - Artistry & Natural Beauty Combined

Old Town Timber is a beacon of craftsmanship nestled in the heart of historic St. Augustine, Florida. Specializing in bespoke furniture, with a unique focus on epoxy resin creations, Old Town Timber stands as a testament to the marriage of artistry and nature's raw beauty.

What truly sets them apart is their unwavering commitment to sustainability and reverence for the past. Every piece crafted by this Florida-based company begins its journey as reclaimed wood, weathered and worn by the powerful forces of nature—strong winds, tropical storms, and hurricanes that frequently sweep through the coastal town of St. Augustine.

In this interview, we'll discover the ethos of Old Town Timber, and find out how they breathe new life into aged timber, infusing it with purpose and meaning.

Interviewer: Could you tell us a little bit about the origins of Old Town Timber, and what makes you such a unique part of your industry?

Austin Weeks: I am the owner and founder, and we started about eight years ago. Stephen Kaltenbach is my right-hand man, and he became a partner about two years ago. I would say, I'm kind of where it all starts, and he's where it all finishes, and then we fill the gaps in between.

My dad's a general contractor, and I grew up around a lot of old wood. So, old heart pine and stuff like that, and in college I didn't have the cash to buy furniture, so I was like, well, I can build it.

I start building furniture for myself and friends, and they were like, oh, man, this is crazy. So, it just kind of snowballed. I got some real jobs doing commercial real estate early on, and some of those clients wanted furniture too. I was like, okay, this could be something. So, I started the company, started collecting old reclaimed wood, and then Hurricane Matthew came through. And then Hurricane Irma came through right after that. The number of logs around Saint Augustine was crazy. I worked with the city and I worked with tree guys, and I started getting a lot of the logs from the storms, and just coincidentally, the resin and the live edge river table trends were firing at the same time.

We milled a lot of that timber, and went through all those slabs in about two years, making river tables. Then we bought our own mill, and just kept collecting logs. Now, we probably have 200 logs, which is maybe 600 slabs in the warehouse, and really spent two years just building our wood inventory.

Saint Augustine, Florida, is the nation's oldest established city. That doesn't mean they're the oldest trees in the United States, but they’re the oldest documented trees. So, we take those old trees, with stories, and then turn them into finished works of art, you know, livable works of art.

I think that's one of the coolest things, is the history in the wood that we're using. There’s a new venture that we're starting this year, it’s a wood museum. Our showroom has three different areas or “pods”, and one of the pods we're turning into a wood museum, to acknowledge the history of the wood we work with.

We’re putting up a street sign for Old Town Timber, and Wood Museum is one of the little taglines featured on the sign. And we even used some EcoPoxy SnowWhite resin in the sign, so that’s kind of fun. It’s made from cedar slabs, and if you look closely, you can see we filled it with SnowWhite resin.

We've also started to do wedding rentals, and in particular we hand built a mobile bar.  And if you look closely, you can see there's a little bit of pearl resin inlay in the cedar slabs. So, we're always utilizing the resin in whatever we do, whether it's to structurally make something sound, or for that esthetic look and feel.

Also with the wedding rentals, we’re offering a sign-in slab, where instead of a sign-in book, you sign in on a wooden slab. Then we'll take that slab and your wedding flowers and do an encapsulated bouquet setting in resin, as a unique keepsake.

We also try new techniques with resin. We’ve came up with a process called the Storm Chaser method, where we use FlowCast, and then incorporate pigmented UVPoxy. So, we're actually adding the UVPoxy resin into the FlowCast resin, which I know may not be endorsed by EcoPoxy, but it has some incredible effects with texture and color.

Interviewer: I think we were talking about that previously. I think we should probably do some sort of tutorial on that technique. Maybe even an official off-label application process, developed by Old Town Timber.

Austin: We did a huge countertop, and we did it all in Storm chaser. It looked awesome!

Steven Kaltenbach: I moved back to Florida during the pandemic, because I was living up north and it just wasn't a great living situation. I was like everyone else, just looking for side jobs, and an old college buddy that was working at Old Town Timber said if I want some actual side work, they're doing cool stuff with wood and resin.

So, I came and checked it out and fell in love with it. I’m a lifelong surfer, and my dad is a builder by trade, so the connection of the wood and the scene here just kind of clicked with me. It’s just so much fun to start with old wood and then have this beautiful product evolve from that.

I've been doing stuff with Austin just about every day for the past two and a half years, and it's been fun to use my creativity. I'm an artist, so it all just kind of pulled together and turned into what we do now. And it's a lot of fun to do something different and learn something new each day; learn how to use the tools, and how to use the wood and resin in new ways.

When you see people light up whenever they see our stuff, it's a pretty awesome feeling. A lot of the projects that get brought to our attention; they definitely resonate with our audience. I guess you could say our customers are also like our fans, and they like to check us out on our Instagram channel, and so on.

Interviewer: Some of your work has been featured in our annual calendar. A lot of the images that come out of your shop garner quite a bit of attention from the people that follow our brand. What do you think generates that reaction? Is it your location, or the history of the place, or just a combination of everything? Why does Old Town Timber resonate?

Stephen: I think it's a combination of everything. It's the fact that we undertake projects that I don't think people have done before; there's no blueprint for how we do it. Sometimes we figure it all out on the fly, because we’re not a big team; it’s usually just Austin and myself. People see our projects and expect to see 20 guys working on it. And then we show up and they go, “Well, where's everybody else?” Like, you're looking at them!

We put everything into every project that we make. They’re an extension of ourselves; our thought process, our blood, sweat and tears. And, to all, all the stuff out like tears. Austin and I have a very good working relationship; we understand each other. We understand what the other needs to get the project across the finish line, whether it's encouragement or a kick in the backside.

I think it just resonates with people in general, to see individuals come together, work and then build a beautiful product.

And on the calendar note, both my mom and grandmother were very excited to see our products in the calendar. That was a nice touch.

Interviewer: You could’ve gone with other brands, what made you decide to go with EcoPoxy products?

Austin: Starting out, I tried other brands.  But we do a lot of whitewash furniture, and as soon as the big box store brand resin touches it, it looks like it's in the 80s; automatically yellow. That's unacceptable. So that had to change. So once that happened a few times, I was on a mission to figure out clarity.

EcoPoxy is by far the best product that I came across.

Then I started working with the EcoPoxy team and became a distributor, and it's just been a great working relationship ever since. I have been approached by other companies to use their product. I get hit up from China once a week. But it's just not worth it. And it's nice to see that EcoPoxy is always progressing; you’ve launched 4 or 5 new products since I’ve started working with you.

We’re both artists, and to a degree, a bit rebellious. He's a bit of a rebel, I'm a bit. We like to do things the way they say we can’t do it. Like with the river stairs project, everyone thought we were crazy when I suggested that project to the clients. But we're always going to go that little extra. That's the goal. We don't want to be the guys just building coffee tables. We want to be the guys doing the big installs in the new hotels in Dubai. Right?

Interviewer: One of the things I wanted to ask about was climate. You're in Saint Augustine, so obviously climate is an issue when it comes to resin. Exothermic reactions make heat, so that must be a consideration. Is summertime just like a no-go season for pouring resin?

Stephen: Summer’s definitely not a no-go season, because if that was the case, Florida would be the worst place ever to do this. The heat and humidity definitely have an effect. Sometimes the effect is that the project turns out way cooler than we anticipated.

We did this console table for these clients a year ago. It ended up looking like a white and blue marble from the heat. It was the hottest day of the year, and we probably shouldn't have poured, but we did, and it ended up turning out to look insane. It was just so incredible; and the fact that we probably couldn’t repeat again it if we wanted to.

Temperature is usually our biggest adversary, slash friend. We have thermometers, heat index and humidity index meters, and all that stuff. We try to get in that 70-degree range with below 40% humidity. But it's Florida. You’ve got about two weeks of the year that are like that. Other than that, it's either going to be too hot or too cold. So, you just got to work with what you got.

Austin: Space heaters. Yeah, we'll put the resin in the bathroom with a space heater just to warm it up. Honestly, I think the heat is less of an issue than the cold sometimes.

Interviewer: So, last question. What’s in the near future for Old Town timber? What's inspiring you; what are you working on?

Austin: We’ve got some good stuff in the mix. We're doing a new line this year, inspired by bulky blocky wood. You're going to start seeing some really blocky stuff from us. Especially big blocky table legs and table bases.

We're also working on our biggest conference table to date, which is 17ft by five feet. There’s a 14ft Pecky cypress dining room table we’re also working on. And really working on textures. Now we've got the textures dialed, we’re at the fun part. We’re giving clients the 12-pour option, if they want texture, depth and layers.

Steven: Using the resin, there’s colors, effects and unpredictability; it’s kind of an artform in itself.

Austin: Yup, like throwing darts in the wind. That's what I tell clients. When that resin is gets involved, you’re throwing darts in the wind, baby.

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Many thanks again to Austin and Steven for taking the time to speak with us. Be sure to visit Old Town Timber online at oldtowntimber.com, and check them out on Instagram (@oldtowntimber) and YouTube (@oldtowntimber).