Antique Woods & Colonial Restoration

Dale Lehmer, owner of Antique Woods and Colonial Restorations (AWCR), has been working with antique barns and homes all across America for 40 years now. He started working full time taking down barns in the early 70s to sell the siding and beams that became popular for home restorations at that time. Over the years, he has literally dismantled over a thousand barns, log and timber-frame homes, churches, covered bridges, train stations, privies, and other assorted sheds and early structures.

After several years of dismantling and studying these structures, he completed the cycle and started rebuilding them as homes, offices, stores, art galleries, mills, horse barns, and many other creative re-uses of these magnificent historical artifacts. His firm has helped to design and rebuild barn-home conversions, timber frame additions and numerous antique log homes and other colonial structures.

Today, due to his age, Dale has several experienced independent firms that do the dismantling of the frames that Dale then purchases and brings to his shop in Upstate NY for cleaning, repairs, adaptations, and future sales.

Dale's love and knowledge of early structures and antique woods are clearly evident if you take the time to browse through our photo section of just a small portion of the work that he has done over the years.

Today there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of folks in the barn and reclaimed lumber business, some of whom were Dale's understudies over the years. Dale's uniqueness comes from his experience, knowledge, and skill that he has developed from a lifetime of dedicated work and passion for saving these wonderful old structures.

Dale and his crew can help you find a truly magnificent barn frame or a log house, and work with you on conceptual design and drawings for home conversions and other creative uses that can then be taken to your architect or engineer for review, and final drawings and stamping, which will be necessary before you will be able to get your building permit and start construction.

Antique Woods also has a large supply of other antique lumbers, including wide plank flooring and wall sheathing that we can provide for you to get the exact look that you are after.