For more than two decades, Urban Tree Salvage® has called Scarborough home. It’s where our story began in 2004, starting with a simple but powerful idea — that Toronto’s fallen trees deserved a second life. In the early years, we focused on salvaging, milling, and selling local lumber. And as the years went on, that raw material naturally evolved into something more. Piece by piece, we began transforming those city trees into handcrafted furniture, allowing the wood to tell a new story inside people’s homes.
Over the years, our Scarborough showrooms have welcomed thousands of clients who’ve come to see our slabs in person, learn about our process, and experience the character of locally salvaged Toronto trees firsthand.
But behind the scenes, another chapter has been growing quietly for the past ten years. In January, that chapter finally comes to life as we move our showroom north to join our manufacturing location in the Parry Sound region — a move that has been many years in the making, shaped by both purpose and place. While our address will be changing, our craft, our service, and our commitment to local sustainability remain exactly the same.
Urban Tree Salvage® began in 2004 with a simple but determined mission: to rescue Toronto’s felled trees and give them a second life. At the time, the idea of “urban lumber” was new, and explaining to people that city trees could be milled, dried, and transformed into heirloom-quality furniture took patience and persistence.
Those early years were filled with long days, small spaces, and a deep belief in the value of what we were doing. As a husband-and-wife team, we built every part of the business with our own hands — salvaging, milling, and drying local lumber, then slowly evolving into crafting handcrafted live edge furniture.
The dust, the tools, and the constant hum of machinery weren’t just part of the job; they were part of our identity.
Scarborough has been the heart of Urban Tree Salvage from the very beginning. It’s where people walked through our first Scarborough showroom, ran their hands along a live edge, compared grain patterns, and began to imagine how a fallen Toronto tree might one day become one of our custom dining tables. Those early, in-person conversations shaped our business and helped it grow alongside a community that valued craftsmanship, sustainability, and connection to place.
We remain deeply grateful for every person who made the trip to see us — whether from down the street or from across Ontario. The relationships built in our Scarborough showrooms have shaped who we are and will always be part of our story.
In our early years, we welcomed University of Toronto forestry students for complimentary tours and proudly donated pieces to local causes — small ways we could give back to the community that supported us so wholeheartedly.
More than ten years ago, we took the first step toward a long-term dream: living and working in cottage country. We purchased land in the Parry Sound region — a few acres where we could build a mill, storage facility, and manufacturing space surrounded by nature.
For the past decade, our business has lived between two worlds. Each week, we commuted back and forth between the northern workshop and the city showroom, balancing production in one place and client visits in another. It worked… but it was always temporary. We knew that one day, our goal was to bring everything together in our Parry Sound manufacturing location, where our custom furniture production has continued to grow behind the scenes.
After nearly ten years of travelling between the GTA and Parry Sound, the timing felt right to take the next step and make the transition we’ve long envisioned.
Our Scarborough showroom will be closing in early January. As we finalize the exact date, we encourage clients to check our website for updates. Throughout January, we’ll begin taking down the showroom and moving everything north. During this time, our woodshop remains fully operational, and we will continue accepting and building custom orders without interruption.
What isn’t changing is everything our clients have come to rely on:
• the same team (Melissa and Sean)
• the same salvaged Toronto and Ontario wood
• the same craftsmanship and attention to detail
• the same step-by-step guidance throughout the custom process
Our commitment to thoughtful, one-on-one service remains at the core of what we do.
Over the years, we’ve quietly built a remarkable stockpile of salvaged Toronto trees and reclaimed Ontario wood — each piece gathered with intention, each one waiting for the right project and the right home. Much of this material has already been resting at our Parry Sound location for years, patiently drying, aging, and preparing for its next life.
As our showroom now makes the journey north, it’s truly a full-circle moment — bringing our clients closer to the very place where these timbers have been waiting all along to become something meaningful.
Over the years, we’ve seen a natural shift in how many clients prefer to design and purchase their furniture. More and more custom projects now begin — and are completed — entirely online through email, photos, and phone conversations. That change played a meaningful role in our decision to step away from a full-time city showroom. It simply felt like the natural progression of how our clients already work with us.
We will continue to provide the same high level of personal service through email consultations and phone, and we now also offer video consultations to walk through design details together in real time. For clients who want to see and compare materials from home, we also have a sample program to help with wood species and colour selections.
To support clients across Ontario and Canada, we offer:
• detailed photos and videos of available slabs and finished pieces
• video consultations for design review and planning
• GTA pickup and delivery through our city storage location
• delivery across Ontario and Canada
Once our showroom has moved north, clients will be welcome to pick up directly from our Parry Sound area location. We will also continue to operate a city storage location that we travel to a few times each month for GTA pickups and deliveries using our longtime local movers, with additional shipping options available across Ontario and Canada as needed.
Whether you visit us in person or connect with us virtually, you’ll receive the same care, guidance, and attention to detail we’ve offered since the very beginning.
As we prepare for this next chapter, we feel deeply grateful for the support we’ve received over the past 20 years. Every client who brought home a table made from a salvaged Toronto tree or reclaimed Ontario wood has played a meaningful part in the foundation of our business.
Moving our showroom north is not an ending — it’s a continuation of the dream we started a decade ago. We’re excited to welcome people to our new location, surrounded by the landscape that has inspired our work for so many years.
For those looking to shop sooner rather than later, we’ll continue offering ready-to-ship furniture, and for those dreaming of something custom, you can always start a custom conversation with us.
Thank you for being part of our journey — past, present, and everything still to come.
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Sean and Melissa founded Urban Tree Salvage back in 2004 when recycling felled urban trees was not a mainstream industry. They are the Canadian pioneers of repurposing urban forestry waste and have created thousands of custom wood dining tables and other solid wood products to clients across Canada and worldwide.
