Our New Pub Furniture: A Barn Recycled

A few years ago, Joe was washing dishes in the pub while talking to patrons Dan and Marcie Grabruck. Knowing Joe’s love for woodworking and the craftsmanship that went into building barns many years ago, Dan mentioned that he had a 100 year old barn on his property that had become unsafe and in danger of collapse. He wondered if Joe knew of anyone who could disassemble the barn and might make use of the aged hemlock wood.

Joe soon visited the Grabruck’s barn and was taken with the way the hemlock wood had aged. Looking up through the rafters, Joe realized that the 100 year old barn wood would make perfect building material for the 100 year old hardware store in which our brewpub resides. Joe promised Dan that he would take the barn down himself if he could keep the wood to use for future building projects. An idea was born, but would take a few years to fully develop.

Over the past year, Joe and the maintenance crew from Short’s, along with some barn specialists, lovingly disassembled the Grabruck’s barn and began preparing the hemlock wood for new uses. The weathered wood is beautiful in a way that lumber purchased in a lumberyard could never replicate.

As Short’s has grown, we have an increasing need for a more efficient seating plan in our Pub. We have spent a great deal of time envisioning how to improve the design, while retaining the original character. Finally, Joe has decided to renovate our Pub seating to include new tables and booths built in large part from the barn wood restored from the Grabruck’s barn. We feel that the hand-built nature of these tables will be a wonderful fit in our Pub.

The new pub seating renovations will replace much of our existing pub furniture, including our Cadillac Couch, the high-top tables and chairs, and many of the miscellaneous tables in the stage-side room. As we no longer will have a need for these classic Short’s items, we have decided to make several of them available for purchase in the near future. This will be a unique opportunity to own a piece of Short’s history. If you are interested in purchasing any of these items, we are collecting your information now so that we can contact you with details. You may sign-up here to let us know if you are interested!

We are excited about our renovations, which will take place over the next month. As you see the new furniture come into use, remember that it is not so “new” after all, but rather 100 year old wood handcrafted by Joe and other Short’s employees.

– Joe & the Short’s Staff