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The door to Gardner's office was crafted with salvaged pine and a salvaged lockset. (Photo by Kip Dawkins)
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Gardner added a mahogany inlay made from his great-great-grandparents' farm table to this built-in desk. (Photo by Kip Dawkins)
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The ship-ladder-style stairs are crafted from scrap yard steel. (Photo by Kip Dawkins)
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The dining room table has a 12-foot, live-edge maple top cut from a tree that came down by Gardner's house. (Photo by Kip Dawkins)
Travis Gardner started his career strategizing in the conference room, but now, after years of working in the field on renovation projects, he’s become a true visionary. After earning his MBA at UVA’s Darden School of Business, early career moves in the real estate and housing markets paved the way for launching his own design/build firm, Gardner Construction, in 2010. Since then, his company has helped clients renovate their houses into the homes of their dreams using superior materials — including salvaged pieces — and craftsmanship. “At our heart, we’re a team of craftsmen who are passionate about historic neighborhoods and well-built homes and structures,” he says. R•Home spoke with Gardner to learn about how upcycling building materials takes their renovation projects to the next level.
R•Home: Why is incorporating salvage important?
Travis Gardner: I had an architect who I admire a lot who once shared this belief with me, one I really hold on to as a guiding light for all projects: A home should tell a story, and that story should feel very authentic and natural.
Even when it’s not the authentic story … we want [our projects] to feel like the structure it was intended to be from the beginning. People crave that authenticity. Reusing material is a way to add a warmth, an authenticity to the project. … We’re not reusing material because it’s less expensive. It’s a lot of work.
R•Home: What are some interesting pieces you’ve salvaged and transformed?
Gardner: For [a staircase in a finished garage], we took this scrap piece of 2-by-6 tube steel that was sitting in the scrap yard. You can see how a maple leaf decomposed and etched itself into the steel. That was just so cool, and we thought, "How do we leverage this?"
We made a desk for my kids; the inlay in the desk is from my great-great-grandparents' farm table that had been passed down. The legs were in bad shape, no one had a place for it, but we wanted that to live on, that memory, so we built it into that desktop.
R•Home: How do you determine what pieces to use?
Gardner: Truthfully, we look for opportunities to reuse and recycle/upcycle everywhere. … With clients, we say, “If we’re pulling this stuff out, how cool would it be if we use some of this wood and take the very material that we just pulled out of here and put it back in?” And you can tell the story of this renovation to friends and family, and it becomes a living part of the project.
Right now, we’re working on [a project], and [the client] has his grandfather’s bell and says, “Oh, by the way, be careful with that bell, it has sentimental value.” So we ask, “Should we consider coming up with something for it?” You quickly get a sense of what people are really excited about. When they are, then it’s worth figuring out.
A lot of times, you have to take the material and find the right artisan. It starts with that material. How do we get the most out of this? … By having a degree of artistic license, whether in-house or working with someone to collaborate to really bring out the reclaimed material into the project … [we find materials that are] too cool to not do something with.