Tropical Salvage

About 10 years ago, I purchased all my household furniture from Tropical Salvage (except my sofa, since they don’t sell upholstered furniture). I can’t say enough good things about this purchase. Things just aren’t made to last anymore! You might spend more money on a piece here, but it’s real wood, not that fake Ikea stuff, and will last 100 years if you treat it right.
This is also the most environmentally friendly, green furniture in all of Portland — they don’t cut trees down and the furniture will last 50 – 100 years. Talk about sustainability! Forget about FSC-​certified wood, that’s for wood that is still being cut down.
I just orange oiled my furniture for the first time in 10 years and it all looks Gorgeous and Brand New again, even 10 years later! That is insane… especially in a modern world where your iphone won’t last more than 2 years before breaking. So happy I bought from here.

Sorry! I WANT to like Tropical Salvage, the setting is cool (actually freezing if you go in the winter — seriously! Take a jacket), the sales people nice, but hardly anything was priced and while I was there I heard two different prices quoted from two different people working there (I think one was the owner). My issue is that after purchasing three different pieces, all three have split within a few months of my getting them home. When I called they asked me if I had it in the sun, WHAT??? Yes, I guess I did, it was near a window… Does that mean it shouldn’t be in daylight? Many of the pieces are beautiful, quite a few unique or odd designs, but ultimately not completely durable or reliable. I have a table which is not only splitting, but also twisted and no longer even close to being level. Sort of takes the fun out of cool furniture. I can’t recommend the place.

Tropical Salvage reclaims old, quality hardwood in Indonesia and gives it new life in solid furniture. In doing so, they create fair trade, conservation supportive jobs in Indonesia and enable consumers to choose wood products whose availability does not depend on harvests of standing trees. Wooden Duck of Berkeley has a similar approach, except a lot of their furniture saves standing trees through demolition-​related conservation.
There’s a lot of solid handsome furniture here. I was particular impressed with one particular coffee table and a few hutch-​type pieces. Prices are very reasonable and to the point that I might be able to pay for the piece and the shipping and still get a better total price than a Bay Area purchase.

I decided I was going to buy my very first dinning room table from Tropical Salvage. I was drawn to them because they are local business and make beautiful furniture. Tim, the owner, worked with me to order a table with specific dimensions to accommodate my needs. I was extremely excited. He claimed the table would arrive within 3 months. The table didn’t come in. Apparently, there was a mistake on the shipment order. I was completely understanding (probably a little too understanding). He told me another 40 days. I tried calling to see where my table was (2 more months had passed) and left a message. A women who works there left me a message claiming they were too busy for me and that I needed to wait until they called me. They never called.
I heard they are selling to Costco now, maybe that is the reason they forgot about me.

Pretty cool business actually and a very interesting idea. In its simplest form: the company salvages wood from Indonesia and other SE Asian countries. The wood comes from scrap sources (land slides, old homes, etc.) so they are chopping down a living forest. The furniture is constructed there by the locals, shipped here and sold.
Pretty simple business model that is green and helps people. I went in looking for a desk recently and like what I saw. The’ve got a pretty big warehouse to explore that is packed with different types of pieces (almost anything for your home). The pieces are a little spendy comparable to other stores, but I suppose that’s the cost of being green.
Some of the pieces are really cool, and according to the staff there some of the wood has been carbon dated and is really old. Staff are polite and helpful. They only have one small delivery truck it looks like so when I asked about delivery I was told it was another $ 80 or so and was arranged with a third party. That was a downer for me but certainly not their fault that I own a small car. I had to pass on the desk I was looking because of the delivery fee *but* will definitely come back and look for other pieces.