People Are Stealing Reclaimed Wood—Is ‘Fixer Upper’ to Blame?
Laptops? Flat-screen TVs? Jewelry? Nah. In rural Kentucky, the thieves are going for barn doors. And some are laying the blame on “Fixer Upper’s” Chip and Joanna Gaines.
A story in Tuesday’s Courier Journal revealed that barn wood thieving is a significant problem, particularly in Kentucky, where there are more old barns per square mile than any other state. So far, theft cases have been reported in at least 13 Kentucky counties. In one community of 6,700 people, having over 20 barns pillaged in a single year isn’t rare, Cumberland County Sheriff Scot Daniels told the Courier Journal.
“Someone will go back to their barns in tobacco time and the side will be gone,” Daniels told the C-J. “The thing is trying to prove it, because you don’t know when it was taken.”
Local lumber buyers are keeping their eyes out for stolen boards, but it’s hard to identify product that comes from sticky-fingered barn wood thieves, the article writes.
“Hundred-year-old barn boards don’t have serial numbers, and thieves usually work at night and away from main roads,” it reads. “Besides, in a lot of communities, seeing someone in a barn isn’t the least bit suspicious.”
The trendiness of reclaimed wood has skyrocketed in recent years, particularly due to Chip and Joanna Gaines, who rose to fame for their HGTV renovation show “Fixer Upper.” The couple is known for their “modern farmhouse” style, and famously include shiplap, a rough-sawn pine paneling, in many of the homes they renovate. The Gaineses have (obviously) never advocated for robbing a barn.
Reclaimed barn wood is sold to wholesalers for around 80 cents to $2 per board foot. It’s then sold for $4.35 and up, depending on what it’s made of and how this it is, the C-J writes.
Barns aren’t the only thing that have seen an uptick in theft due to design trends. Cacti and succulents have been stolen from national parks, and are being sold on on the black market.
Apartment Therapy has reached out to representatives of the Gaines’s for comment.