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Repurposing items, also known as upcycling, has become a hot trend over the past few years. Not only is the process giving something old a new life, it’s keeping usable items out of landfills.

From using reclaimed materials to build houses to redesigning thrift-store finds into runway fashions, the concept of repurposing and recycling can be implemented in a variety of ways.

For Robert Hicks, owner of Record Woodworks in Evans, he’s giving old wine barrels a new life by using the materials to create custom furniture.

Hicks started Record Woodworks in 2020 when he got furloughed from his job at a brewery in Loveland.

“When everything shut down, I had this old wine barrel that I had made some small stuff out of. I had always told my father-in-law that I was going to make a wine barrel chair so I made him one,” Hicks explained. “Well, then it just became a ripple effect when my neighbors saw it and wanted one, and then my co-worker saw it and wanted one, and then my wife’s cousin wanted one — and the orders just started coming in.”

The flood of requests allowed Hicks to continue to bring in an income for his family while being able to work from home.

After getting a small inventory, Hicks decided to test out the waters at a craft show.

“I did Art in the Park for my first craft show, and I sold everything that I made,” he said. “I had so many orders for chairs just from people sitting in the chairs.”

The chairs Hicks fashions are a Adirondack style, with of course a slot cut out in the arm to hold a wine glass. He also makes matching custom side tables and ottomans.

“I build everything out of my shop here at my house and I generally make the chairs in pairs,” he said. “I can turn them into a rocking chair as well.”

To date, Hicks has built 35 chairs and numerous side tables.

In addition to furniture, Hicks creates cribbage boards, cigar holders, tie racks, stringed instrument racks, wine bottle bird feeders and other unique items out of pieces from the wine barrels.

While whiskey barrels are quite popular in making furniture and other items, Hicks prefers the coloring and texture that wine barrels offer.

“The color in whiskey barrels isn’t as vibrant. What I like about the wine barrels is that it is a medium toast versus a heavier toast on a whiskey barrel to give it that extra charred flavor,” Hicks said. “The wine barrel doesn’t go through that heavy of a toasting process; plus the wine gives it a certain color.”

It takes one entire barrel to make the slats for the seat and back for just one chair, and he uses larger pieces from other barrels for the arm rests.

“That way, when you look at it, it’s all the same and uniform,” Hicks said. “There are 28 staves in each barrel, so you are talking a lot of wood in these. The pieces you can use are only so big.”

Hicks applies a sealant to each piece of furniture and item he makes so they can withstand harsh cold or toasty hot weather throughout the different states in the U.S.

Any extra pieces left over are saved for other projects and items.

Hicks buys wine barrels from a dealer in Denver and painstakingly searches through the dealer’s inventory to find the perfect barrels for the furniture he envisions of making.

“Ladera out of Napa Valley is a very high-end winery, and they make beautiful barrels; Calvin Coolidge makes barrels for wineries and distilleries,” Hicks said. “It’s kind of a cool thing because I get the barrels from resale barrels and the wineries are generally all from California. It’s interesting because here in Colorado, we are so far disconnected from the Napa Valley.”

Working with wood isn’t anything new for Hicks. He began dabbling in the hobby at friends’ houses.

“When I had the time, I came home and I had a lot of this wine barrel stuff and I had a passion, because I went to Western State in Gunnison and I have an Environmental Studies in Outdoor Leadership degree, so my passion is repurposed items,” he said.

With wine barrels, Hicks sees items that are at the end of their lives, waiting to be reborn into another life through another use — or a cradle-to-grave concept.

“I am taking that product which is an end barrel wine cask and turning it into a new life product,” Hicks said. “You take a product that is at its end life and create a brand new product with it.”

Despite using strictly wine barrels for his pieces and being familiar with the characteristics of certain wineries barrels, Hicks admitted he’s not a wine drinker.

“I don’t even drink wine; I’m a beer guy,” he said, laughing.

Chairs start at $600 and other items are priced a la carte since a majority of the work is custom — even down to the color of the dowels a customer prefers.

To see items available for purchase at Record Woodworks’ Etsy store, go to https://etsy.me/3SpxNBq. To inquire about a custom order, contact Robert Hicks at Robert.Michael.Hicks@gmail.com.

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