Salvaging Historic Elm Through Our Urban Wood Project

Our Urban Wood Project

Since 2018, we’ve been partnering with small businesses and cities across the country to locate trees and wood buildings that must come down due to old age, construction or storms. Our partners move this wood to local workshops where it’s repurposed into lumber for furniture. This is the beauty of our Urban Wood Project: It saves trees that would otherwise be mulched or burned and turns them into one-of-a-kind furniture with a sustainable story.

In 2025 we diverted 365 trees from the waste stream, and in 2026 it will be even more, thanks to our next phase: elm. Elm is a strong, rare wood with a rich history, making it a particularly special addition to your home.

Elm’s American Heritage

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, U.S. furniture makers loved using elm for its dramatic color range and strong, interlocked grain. At the time, elm trees were also the predominant urban shade tree in the eastern and midwestern U.S. Elm’s giant canopies and awe-inspiring presence were synonymous with Main Street America.

In the 1930s, Dutch elm disease (a fungal infection spread by bark beetles) was first identified in the U.S. Within a few decades, the fungus had wiped out tens of millions of elm trees in cities and forests. This not only reshaped American streets, but also destroyed the production of elm furniture. While elm hasn’t disappeared completely, its supply has become unreliable, so all large-scale manufacturers have shifted their focus to more stable species like oak, maple and cherry.

Despite the huge impact of Dutch elm disease, there are still millions of elm trees spread throughout the U.S. canopy. Many have been sheltered from the fungal spread because they’ve been surrounded by concrete or treated with fungicides. Still, the vast majority of elm trees must be removed as they age and become hazardous. As these beautiful, century-old trees come down, almost all of them end up in landfills, mulched or burned.

Giving Elm a Second Life

Room & Board currently leads the industry in urban wood reclamation and sustainability thanks to the partnerships we’ve built over the last decade. One of our new partners is Wudeward Urban Forest Products in Wisconsin. We’ve partnered with Wudeward to save a large number of aging or damaged elm trees, giving them a chance at another 100 years as beautiful furniture. In fact, we’ve been able to salvage so much elm that we can offer reclaimed elm as a stocked option in our Hensley collection.

Hensley in Reclaimed Elm

Using the elm Wudeward salvages, our partner Shell Lake Woodcrafters builds the Hensley collection of storage cabinets, dressers and nightstands at their workshop in Northern Wisconsin. Inspired by the timeless appeal of mid-century design and infused with modern details, Hensley features rounded edges, steel hardware and the striking grain of elm. Hensley celebrates the beauty of this historic wood, bringing a special story to your home.

Repopulating Elm

Elm is a beautiful wood we’re proud to salvage from the waste stream, but that’s not our only goal. Room & Board has also provided the University of Minnesota with a grant to support their work on The Survivor Elm Project, which aims to repopulate the country with elm trees that are resistant to Dutch elm disease. This work will help make elm a distinctive part of the canopy once again.