Introducing Rhode Island Found

May 7

Every old building we work on gives something up. A beam that has to come out, a worn door, a piece of hardware, a stack of old boards too good to throw away. For years we have been holding onto those pieces because it felt wrong to send them to a dumpster. Now we are doing something with them, and we are calling it Rhode Island Found.

What Rhode Island Found Is

Rhode Island Found is a new division of Heritage Restoration, and the idea behind it is simple. The objects and scraps we discover in historic buildings, reclaimed timbers, doors, hardware, and odd bits of old material, get a second life in the hands of our craftspeople. A heavy old timber becomes a bowl or a set of candlesticks. New and reclaimed boards become cutting boards. The list keeps growing as we find new material and let our people get creative with it.

Why We Started It

The truth is, this grew out of how we already feel about old buildings. We spend our days trying to save original material rather than tear it out and replace it, so it never sat right to watch good old wood and hardware get thrown away just because it could not go back into the building. This is a way to keep that history in use. A piece of a Rhode Island building you can hold in your hands, or set on your table, instead of a piece that ended up in a landfill.

There is a nice symmetry to it too. The same hands that restore a two-hundred-year-old window are the ones turning a salvaged timber into something you would want to keep.

Come See It

Rhode Island Found makes its work available alongside our restoration projects, and you will find us from time to time at local markets like the Steel Yard Art Market in Providence, often together with our own craftspeople and artists.

If you would like to know what we have made recently, or you are curious whether a particular piece is available, send us a note at rhodeislandfound@heritagerestoration.net. We would be glad to tell you more.