Hello. My name is Ben Hunt, and I had a wild idea one day while my wife and I were preparing to build our own home. Our property was full of beautiful Oak timbers and the only flat spot available for the home was full of beautiful trees. Well, we could not imagine turning the trees into firewood or watching a logging company drive off with them, so I did exactly what my wife was probably praying I would NOT do.
Yep, I bought a little sawmill and a very large chainsaw. While I was cutting the trees into Posts and Beams for our house, I fell in love with how beautiful each cut was, and I could not believe I was turning these magnificent trees into our home. I made posts for the inside of the house and posts for the porches, beams for the kitchen and door jambs, as well as sliding barn doors, stair treads, railings, vanity tops for our bathrooms, a rolling slab bar table (for football food), fireplace mantles, and on and on. Clearly, I was hooked, and so were the subcontractors who worked on our house. They encouraged me to show others what we built, and a business was born. People would tell me how beautiful our timber products were, and I would respond with…

“only God could make something so beautiful, I just cut it so you can see His artwork”.

Inspired by my Grandfather Robert Walston, our adventure began. We first found our footing locally turning other folks’ trees into products for their own homes. We were mainly hand cutting living room and porch timber trusses from Red or White Oak. We bought a small kiln and a large slabbing saw and had a lot of fun turning the really big trees into single slab kitchen tables, vanities, coffee tables, etc. I found it amazing how inspired and excited people would get about getting their tree back as an heirloom piece for the home. This was all a lot of fun, and I had no idea where all this would take us, but change was certainly on the horizon. A few years ago, I realized I was really good at playing in the sawdust and helping others realize their “timber dreams”, but growing a business was not my thing. It was around this time that a large Timber Frame company asked me to join their team, and I did. I spent a few years on the road meeting great people and talking about timbers and home designs, but the corporate pressure just was not fitting who I am or what my family needed. The good thing was, it was on one of those corporate road trips through Ohio that I by chance met my first “Barn Buddy.” His name is Randy and he invited me to see an Old Barn from the mid 1800’s he was converting into a brewery for a client. Wow! I was literally blown away with that fantastic historical structure.

Over the next year I frequently thought about that project until one day, on accident, one of my customers asked me to go look at some “old wood” for his new house. Well, the seller for this old wood was taking down an old barn and it was an amazing structure like the one in Ohio. It was an unexplainable moment when my customer and I looked at each other and without saying it, we were both thinking it. We had a great conversation on the way home and It just felt right when he said “Ben, forget the floor plans we have been working on, I want to buy that barn! I want to live in that Barn!” So there it was. I had found where I really needed to be in my crazy life of wooden adventures. I began converting beautiful Old Barns to New Homes for wonderful people. If you have read all this, I think maybe you and I have things in common and I encourage you to call me. Maybe we will become “Barn Buddies!” Have a blessed day! -Ben