North Toe Sawmill

08/12/2026

Part 2 of the hollow hickory. This is the tree it came from. The hollow runs about 30 feet up a 40 inch trunk, and that's where all the water was sitting. Only way to mill it was to split it down the middle with a chainsaw. One half going on the mill in the last photo. Still getting good flooring out of the solid wood. This log's story isn't over.

07/30/2026

Started sawing into this hickory and water came pouring out. Turns out it's a 40 inch trunk with a hollow section running about 30 feet. This log has a story. More to come.

07/21/2026

Squaring up hickory this morning. Hardest wood on the mill, best smell on the job.

07/07/2026

07/01/2026

Milling on what has to be one of the hottest days of the summer, and somehow I ended up with a big shade tree right over my workspace. Grateful doesn't cover it. Funny how the thing you need often shows up right where you're standing.

Stay cool out there. 🌳

06/16/2026

Everybody wants a pavilion. The backyard kind you put a table under, hang some lights from, and end up living half your summer beneath. And just about everybody who prices one out has the same change of heart when they see what timbers cost at the lumberyard. A few 6x6s and 8x8s and suddenly the dream's on hold till next year.

Here's the part most folks don't know: timbers are the most expensive lumber to buy and the cheapest lumber to cut. A big timber comes off my mill in just a few passes. No fussing, no thin boards, just heavy stock coming off fast. So when the work is easy, I can pass that along.

If you bring me your own pine or poplar logs, I'll mill them into timbers for $1.00 a board foot. That's about as cheap as timbers get anywhere. Got pines standing too close to the house, or a few poplars you've been meaning to drop? That's exactly the wood for this. Pine and poplar both make strong, good-looking pavilion timbers, and at a dollar a foot you can frame the whole thing for a fraction of what the lumberyard wants for the posts alone.

A pavilion's mostly big simple pieces: posts, beams, rafters. The kind of cutting my mill does best and quickest. Bring me the logs and I'll turn them into the bones of it.

A few things worth saying plain:

- The dollar-a-foot rate is for your pine and poplar logs. Other species, or jobs where I supply the logs, run different. Happy to talk numbers either way.

- I'll cut to your timber list. Tell me the sizes and lengths your plan calls for.

- Mobile or at my place, whatever's easier for your logs.

If a pavilion's been on your someday list, this is the cheap part of it handled. Send me a picture of what you've got on the ground, or your timber sizes, and I'll tell you what it'd take.

📞 Call or text Nick: (828) 536-9166
Serving Yancey, Mitchell, Avery, and Madison counties.

05/29/2026

Been grinding away on a big poplar siding order this week. The nice thing about siding is it keeps me in firewood till kingdom come. Slabs, edgings, offcuts, all of it stacks up faster than I can haul it off. Plenty for keeping warm this winter and plenty left to sell.

We've had so much rain the mill yard's turned to soup. I was out there pushing a loaded wheelbarrow through the mud, tires sunk halfway to the axle, and it put me in mind of a story my neighbor Mr. McCurry told me. He's 82 now, and he remembers when work around here was hard to come by.

Back in the day he landed a job an hour and a half away in Hickory, helping a block mason. His job was running mortar from the mixer to the masons. He was glad to have it, but gas money was eating him alive. The only way to make it pay was to get a carpool of neighbor men going.

So he comes back home and starts telling everybody about his fine new job. Tells them the company even gave him a V8 vehicle to make his deliveries. Well, that got folks interested. Got enough men signed on to fill out his carpool.

The V8 vehicle? That wheelbarrow.

Eighty-two years old and he still tells it with a grin. They don't make 'em like that anymore.

05/20/2026

Western NC walnut never gets old to me.
Cream sapwood, that deep purple-brown heart, and grain that looks more like a painting than a board. From the outside walnut's just another tree — you'd never know what's inside until you open it up.
What's the prettiest piece of wood you've ever seen come out of these hills?

Nick

05/13/2026

Big beech log going on the saw next week, and I'll have extras available for pre-order.

I'm milling it for a customer's kitchen countertop, and the log is plenty big enough that there will be more slabs than they need. Beech makes a phenomenal countertop — it's dense, hard, food-safe, takes finish beautifully, and has been used for butcher blocks for centuries for good reason. If any of the slabs come off with spalting (the dark ink-line patterns from natural fungal staining), those are some of the most striking pieces of lumber you can put in a kitchen.

**Pre-order at three stages — you pick how finished you want it:**

— **Rough sawn, ready next week** — straight off the mill, sticker-stacked for you to dry yourself. **$150/slab**
— **Kiln dried, ready in about 2-4 weeks** — dried down so you can build with it sooner. **$300/slab**
— **Finished, ready in about 2-4 weeks** — planed, sanded, ready to install or apply your own oil. **$600/slab**

Standard countertop thickness (2"), with one or two thicker pieces possible for island tops or bar tops if anyone wants that. Sizes will vary depending on how the log opens up — I'll have a mix of widths and lengths.

**Spalted or strongly figured slabs priced individually** — those are a notch up because they're rare and gorgeous. I'll post pics once they're off the saw so you can see what's available.

**Limited quantity** — this is one log, so when the slabs are spoken for, they're spoken for. First come, first served on the pre-orders.

Drop a comment or message me to claim one, or call/text and I can talk you through what's likely to come out.

📞 (828) 536-9166
— Nick / North Toe Trading Co.