Our Story

My unique journey into woodworking started as I was finishing up my senior year at LSU. I was struggling to recover from a shoulder injury which kept me off the mound for the first time in my college career. I needed an escape and was fortunate enough to fill this void with time in the shop where I made small projects on the weekends. From there, my love for woodworking took off. I have been lucky enough to be able to share this passion with my dad, a life long hobbyist woodworker himself. This passion has led us down an unexpected path of turning a fun hobby into a family owned small business where we milled and dried hardwood lumber for our custom furniture projects.

After a few years, our sawmill operation grew to a point where we needed to find an effective way to sell our lumber. This is where City Hardwoods came into the picture, a local hardwood retailer with a fully functioning custom woodworking shop. It was the perfect match. We acquired the business in June of 2022 and have been building high quality custom furniture and selling local hardwood lumber to the Birmingham community ever since. We have big plans for City Hardwoods and look forward to helping you with your next wood project!

Caleb Gilbert - Owner/Operator

Our Sawmill

In an industry filled with middlemen, our remote sawmill operation gives us the ability to supplement our wood room inventory with local hardwoods that have a unique story.

With the help of local tree services companies, we are able to salvage hundreds of urban logs each year that were destined for the mulch mill. Once a log is milled into lumber, each board is stacked and stickered to begin the drying process. From there, the lumber is air dried until it is ready to be finished off in the kiln. We run two kilns, a dehumidification kiln and vacuum kiln, both providing high quality kiln dried lumber that is sterilized from bugs and critters. Once the lumber is properly kiln dried, each board/slab is surfaced through the planer or flatten on the Slab CNC. This extra step allows our customers to be able to see the grain, character, and color of the wood while shopping in our showroom. 

Currently, we do not offer any milling or drying services to the public. However, we are always looking to add to our log yard! So please reach out if you have logs available or are having a tree taken down and want to be a part of the urban lumber movement!