The journey from standing tree to finished piece of furniture, lumber or toothpicks seems straightforward enough. Making the connection locally seems like it should be simple. Man chops down tree, drags it to a sawmill, then another buys that and makes the finished product that I buy -- house, table or pencil. The locavore theme wants to extend past just food production and around here, local wood products seem like a natural fit. Until you try to make it fit.

Take the circuitous journey of four beautiful, striking and strong tables and a desk that local designer, urban activist and craftsman James Carnahan recently created out of the first oak tree grown on Oak Street in Carrboro. The willow oak in his side yard was already compromised, and it died during Carnahan's 2002 renovation of his newly acquired Carrboro residence. As the tree was being taken down, the sad-faced elderly couple living next door who had been present at its 1950 planting, came over and asked him, "You're a furniture maker. Can't you make something from this tree?"

They inspired Carnahan. He had the tree trunk hauled down to Jim Vanderbeck's band saw mill in Chatham County where it first had to be halved with a chain saw to even fit through the mill. After sawing, the planks came home and rested at Carnahan's Carrboro shop for six years. Then he brought them over to Fitch Lumber in Carrboro for planing. It turned out that highly destructive powder post beetles had invaded the wood. They had to be eliminated before he could make and sell the furniture or even use it at home. The wood went on a trip to an industrial fumigator near RDU Airport. Then back for final goings-over and gluing of boards -- some at Hill Country Woodworks and others at the Gibsonville mill gave him the finished boards he needed earlier this year.

Another month of work yielded four tables and the desk, complete with beetle-damaged boards adding a new level of texture and visual interest to the edges of one piece. A neighbor bught one table. Another graces the dining room of James and his wife, Caroline Butler. The other three pieces of golden, beautifully grained, and joined willow oak await buyers. Not easy, not cheap, not efficient and not straightforward. Creating beauty rarely is.

Louis and Dan Graham, the father and son who make those beautiful red cedar chests they sell at the Carrboro Farmer's market every Saturday, also saw cedar for others. From them I learned about the long, convoluted journey eastern red cedar can take from forest to house. Louis told me, that last year he sawed 10,000 feet of the red cedar for the floor, ceiling, posts and beams for a house that a guy wanted to build in Burlington. The guy had timbered the cedar and trucked it out to the Graham family mill in Chatham County. A year later it was back at his warehouse in Burlington to air dry, then he moved it again to a kiln for final drying. Next it was off to High Point where they specialize in producing tongue-and-groove material. With his smooth, finished wood, the man built a highly aromatic house in Burlington.

The supply of quality local red cedar is diminishing because it is not being replanted Louis told me. It is slow-growing tree and neither pulp nor lumber mills want it. Now the Grahams take material as small as 8 inches whereas they never used to use anything smaller than 18 inches.

Local green builder, Tom O'Dwyer, specializes in using as much local wood as he can. His own home features several thousand feet of fencing, siding and trim from very local pines -- those off his own lot. O'Dwyer his trees milled in Hillsborough where sawyer Ray Hecht quarter-saws the trees for strength, stability and a showier grain. Back at his Chapel Hill shop Tom then planes each board but can use them only for trim and flooring, not structurally. Despite that limitation, he estimates thousands of potential local lumber dollars could be built into each house just from the wood that could be gleaned from clearing of rights-of-way and roadsides.

Now, each time I see a massive old tree taken down or even 10 of them as I saw recently, because they were too near the owner's house, I ask myself, "What could be done to recover those for local lumber instead of just sawing them into firewood lengths?" Then I think of the complex multi-part journey these local trees have to make and wonder how to make it worthwhile.

This column marks Blair's 15th anniversary of writing for the Chapel Hilll News. Contact him at blairlpollock@gmail.com