In this episode of the Woodpreneur Podcast, host Jennifer Alger sits down with Luke Gaskin of Good Old Wood in Vancouver, BC. Luke shares how his business evolved from a full-service salvage operation called Salvage Vancouver into a focused reclaimed wood company. The name change wasn’t just branding. It was a turning point. Dropping the salvage identity and committing to Good Old Wood meant letting go of the junkyard mentality and zeroing in on what he actually loved: working with the wood itself and turning it into something new.

Luke talks honestly about the growing pains that came with building a self-taught business from scratch. He had no woodworking background, learned everything from YouTube, and operated on a fake-it-till-you-make-it approach for years. He tried partnerships that didn’t work out, scaled up to a big shop with four employees before COVID forced him to scale back down, and spent the better part of seven years scraping by before the business started gaining real traction. Through all of it, he grew organically without big loans, slowly building his understanding of the craft and the market.

The conversation covers the practical realities of working with reclaimed material. Luke explains why he stopped doing the demolitions himself, how free wood started coming to him once word got out, and why Vancouver’s salvage mandate for older homes created a natural pipeline of material. He breaks down the economics of selling individual mantles and floating shelves versus landing larger commercial projects like feature walls and flooring installs, and why the bigger volumes are where the real money lives. He also talks about the challenge of staying true to the DIY customers who supported him early on while building a business that can actually sustain itself.

One of the standout stories in this episode is Luke’s current project with Aesop, the skincare brand recently acquired by L’Oreal. He’s building out an entire flagship store in Richmond Mall using over five thousand board feet of reclaimed wood. The material is coming from large timbers salvaged from a deconstructed Dairyland facility in Burnaby, and the design was inspired by an earlier project using wood from a wooden roller coaster at Vancouver’s Playland at the PNE. The whole store will be reclaimed wood, designed around Luke and his story, and he describes it as the kind of project where, if it were the last thing he ever built, he’d feel successful.

Jennifer and Luke also dig into the marketing side of the business. Luke admits he hasn’t done much formal marketing, relying mostly on word of mouth, Instagram, and Google searches. He talks about the love-hate relationship with social media, the challenge of documenting your own work while you’re in the middle of building it, and why he’s bringing someone on to handle content creation, especially heading into the Aesop project. Jennifer emphasizes the importance of professional photography and long-term storytelling, reminding Luke that this one project could fuel his marketing for years.

Chapters

00:00 From Salvage Vancouver to Good Old Wood: Finding the Niche

03:29 A Concrete Finisher Discovers Free Wood on a Job Site

05:45 Building a Business with No Woodworking Background

07:07 The Logistics of Reclaimed Wood: What Comes In and What Goes Out

09:54 Why the Real Money Is in Volume: Feature Walls, Flooring, and Barn Wood

12:08 Growing Pains: Partnerships, COVID, and Scaling Back Down

16:46 The Dream of a Family Business and Learning to Let Go

18:53 Tools, Process, and Keeping the Character in the Wood

21:19 Full-Service Builds: From Raw Material to Installation

24:26 Open Saturdays, Wood Markets, and the Power of Story

29:02 Marketing Through Word of Mouth, Instagram, and Google

30:10 The Aesop and L’Oreal Flagship Store Project

35:15 Why Professional Photography and Long-Term Storytelling Matter

39:39 Follow Your Dreams, Fake It Till You Make It, and Keep Pushing

 

The Woodpreneur Podcast brings stories of woodworkers, makers, and entrepreneurs turning their passion for wood into successful businesses – from inspiration to education to actionable advice. Hosted by Steve Larosiliere and Jennifer Alger 

 

For blog posts and updates: woodpreneur.com

 

See how we helped woodworkers, furniture-makers, millwork and lumber businesses grow to the next level: woodpreneurnetwork.com

 

Empowering woodpreneurs and building companies to grow and scale: buildergrowth.io

 

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You can connect with Luke at:

https://www.goodoldwood.ca/

https://www.instagram.com/goodoldwoodco/