Got Old Wood
“I come in every day and still cannot believe this place is ours,” Tammy Barrow said. “I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s the most fascinating place I’ve ever been.” Nestled in a nondescript building, Got Old Wood is anything but ordinary. Step inside and you are instantly transported into history, into craft, into heart. The mother-daughter team of Tammy and Julie Adler-Birch brings reclaimed barnwood back to life, one story and one board at a time.
Tammy retired from Hill Air Force Base in 2007 after a thirty-three-year career, the last many as an IT specialist. “I thought I was done,” she told me. “I was ready to relax.” But when her daughter was offered the chance to take over the business where she had worked since 2019, Tammy did not hesitate. She mortgaged her house to make it happen. “I had never even been inside before,” she said. “But when I finally walked through those doors, I said, ‘Pick me. I’m in.’ I believed in Julie, and I believed in this place.”
Julie’s journey to Got Old Wood began with a deep love of art. As a child, she spent hours drawing, painting, and building. She later trained in carpentry at a trade school after leaving the traditional high school path, wanting to work with her hands and follow her creative instincts. Over the years, she dabbled in a number of jobs - from installing surveillance systems on school buses to working in a behavioral health hospital and serving as a maintenance director at a care facility. But nothing quite clicked until she saw a job listing for a place called Got Old Wood. “The name just pulled me in,” she said. “I thought, ‘Got Old Wood? That sounds like something I could love.’”
At the time, the business was owned by Charlie Schadewald, who had purchased it from the original founders in Murray - what Tammy laughingly called “a little podunk place in a parking lot.” Charlie saw the potential in the concept and moved the operation to its current South Salt Lake location. Years later, when he decided to retire to Hawaii, he handed the business over to Julie, trusting her to carry it forward.
While working for Charlie, Julie started out de-nailing planks and pressure-washing boards, but quickly moved into custom work - crafting mantles, tables, barn doors, accent walls, frames, and more. Today, she loves taking what someone imagines and making it real. “They show me a picture or describe a feeling, and I help bring it to life.”
Julie is a master at listening, and even more skilled at building. “She knows where every piece of wood in this place comes from,” Tammy said. “She’ll walk someone out into the yard and say, ‘This mantle came from a barn in Randolph.’ And if that happens to be where their wife grew up? They are sold.”
Each piece carries the history of a place and the spirit of the people who built it - many over a century ago. Julie and her small team carefully dismantle barns throughout Utah, board by board, preserving the integrity of every beam and plank. “We’re not just tearing down a structure,” Julie explained. “We’re honoring what was built with love. These barns were crafted without nails, just wooden dowels and time-honored techniques. Taking them down is a privilege. And then added, "I treat the wood with integrity and respect. It is gold to me and to our customers who come to us with a purpose and appreciate what we have to share with them.”
Julie can refurbish nearly anything from the thousands of pieces she has collected - sliding barn doors, accent walls, ladders, benches, tables, picture frames, shelves. “If someone can imagine it, I can make it happen,” she said. “That’s what keeps it exciting.”
Julie also finds joy in what is left behind: the barn finds. “It’s amazing what you uncover,” she said. “Old tools, rusted wheels, license plates, bottles, jugs, horseshoes, nails - we have a whole room filled with them. You never know what treasures are buried under those floorboards.”
Their work caught the attention of Ralph Lauren’s design team during a photoshoot at the Tate Barn in Midway. “They walked in and said, ‘This is it. We don’t need to go anywhere else,’” Tammy recalled. “They took barn doors, corrugated metal from an old roof, even a ladder that had come out of a barn we took down. And Julie made them a twenty-foot table they brought back to New York.” The table was later featured on Ralph Lauren’s website.
Every inch of the shop feels like a museum of possibilities - from an 1863 Civil War gun displayed in a custom-lit case, to a river table crafted from cut-offs, to the 1800s Central American dugout canoe hanging overhead. And yet, nothing is off limits. “We want people to feel like they can ask for anything,” Julie said. “A whiskey rack made for their favorite bottle? A live-edge slab table with history built into every inch? We can do that.”
Got Old Wood also sources live-edge slabs from Oregon and salvages barnwood from across the state, including some dating back 300 years. They have over 700,000 linear feet of material in their yard and showroom, each piece waiting to be reimagined.
Customers become regulars. “There’s Alan - he’s had doors, tables, all kinds of things made,” Julie said. “And Lori, she basically furnished her whole home with our pieces. They keep us going.” And then there are the new faces, the ones who stumble in off the road, wide-eyed, wondering how they never knew the shop existed. “It happens almost every day,” Tammy said. “They say, ‘I had to go to Heber City for a mantle and you’re just up the street.’”
Julie’s heart is in every piece. She is there for the heavy lifting, the hand-planing, the sanding, the staining - and most of all, the connection. “This isn’t just about selling wood,” she said. “It’s about honoring history and making someone’s vision real. That moment when they see what I’ve made for them - that’s why I do it.” Tammy, standing nearby, smiled. “Julie’s creations are perfection. This is not just wood. It’s soul. And my daughter pours hers into every single thing she touches.”
