Materials & Sustainability
Relic Modern™ plants trees for all products sold, thanks to a partnership with One Tree Planted. To date, over 4,000 trees have been planted, contributing to reforestation where it's needed most and helping offset the resources used in the wood shop.
Why Relic Modern Chooses Baltic Birch
Nearly everything I build starts with Baltic birch, and that's a sustainability decision as much as a structural one. Baltic birch is made of many thin layers of solid birch, cross-laminated so the grain pulls against itself in every direction. That construction makes it remarkably stable through the seasons — where a solid slab cups, cracks, and pulls apart as humidity swings, a Baltic birch panel stays flat and true for decades. To me, the most sustainable piece of furniture is the one you never have to, or want to, replace. When a table or console outlives trends, survives the moves, and gets handed down instead of hauled off, that's real conservation — of material, of labor, of everything it took to make.
There's beauty in the Baltic birch, too. Those layers reveal themselves at every cut edge as fine, even lines — a natural stripe that records exactly how the piece is made. I leave them exposed on purpose: honest construction you can actually see, no veneer hiding particle board, just real wood and the quiet detail of its own making.
Woodworking can be sustainable — and Relic Modern™ goes further:
PureBond® Europly
The signature layered edge on every Relic Modern piece comes from PureBond® Europly by Columbia Forest Products® — a North American–made Baltic birch plywood with a ULEF core and soy- or PVA-bonded veneers. It's the same Baltic birch that gives you those clean, striped edges — precision-layered to be virtually void-free, milled with almost no waste, and rigid enough to resist the splitting and warping that shortens a piece's life.
North American made · ULEF core, emissions <0.05 ppm · CARB2 & TSCA Title VI certified · LEED® composite-wood compliant
Scrap Wood
Offcuts and remnants are reimagined into smaller home goods, with some created specifically to make use of leftover sizes. Whatever can't be reused goes to the Hennepin County Energy Recovery Center, where it's converted into energy instead of going to a landfill.
Finishing
Every piece is finished by hand with pure tung oil, boiled linseed oil, and wax — no harsh chemicals, just a natural satin that deepens the grain and holds its look for decades.
Carbon Footprint
Materials are ordered in bulk to cut the number of shipments it takes to stock the shop, and pieces are built to order in Minneapolis so nothing's overproduced. Every choice — sourcing, finishing, freight — is made to keep the footprint low without cutting the quality that makes a piece last.
2205 California St NE, Suite 123, Minneapolis, MN 55418
Showroom Hours
Tues/Wed: by appointment
Thurs/Fri: 12-4
Sat: 11-2
Sun/Mon: Closed
Closed July 16-18, August 6-8, Sept 5, 12 and 24-26