PORTLAND, OR – September 17, 2012 – In support of its mission, Tropical Salvage is moving into a new, expanded space. The new location, 2233 NW York Street in Portland, OR, will serve as the company’s U.S. headquarters, warehouse, and retail and education destination. The move coincides with the launch of a new website and receipt of a new container of company’s handmade, fair trade, salvaged wood furniture. This October, Tropical Salvage takes over 20,000 sq ft. of open space …

Tropical Salvage founder Tim O’Brien is spending the summer in Indonesia. On July 6, he described his arrival and his intentions for the trip…. We arrived in Jakarta in reasonably good shape. Maddie and Rowan (ages 4 and 2), a little stunned by the inverted time (14–hour time change!), awoke last night at 2 a.m. to tumble around for an hour like squirrels in springtime. To recover from the journey, we’ve checked into a material fortress that integrates three shopping …

Portland–Based Tropical Salvage Outfits New Palestinian Olive Oil Factory How did a furniture manufacturing business headquartered in Portland connect with an olive oil producer in the West Bank? Through a shared commitment to Fair Trade – to creating healthy, sustainable employment opportunities in areas of economic hardship. Canaan Fair Trade gets its olives and other ingredients from Fair Trade cooperatives in the area around Jenin, Palestine. The company contracted with Tropical Salvage, based in Portland, Oregon, to provide custom furnishings …

My daughter, Madeline, who is aged two years and four months, sometimes announces to me, “I want see slow loris. ” We open a book that contains, among numerous other pictures of creatures, a beautiful illustration of a slow loris. Maddie coos and repeats the loris’ name, pointing at it excitedly, as if trying to provoke the illustration to leap from the page into her arms. I make a sound like what I imagine a slow loris might emit – …

By Tim O’Brien The idea for Tropical Salvage occurred during a visit to Indonesia in 1998. Two observations encouraged the idea. First, wherever I traveled in Java, Bali, Lombok and Sumbawa, I noticed old wooden structures being replaced by new structures built from concrete and rebar. In many instances no plan existed to re –use the old beams, boards and poles. Old, hand–hewn wood deriving from mature, tight –grained, tropical hardwood trees was fueling cooking fires. The idea was also …