Lumber Slingers

This week's Newswire hits different. The crew opens with a heartfelt tribute to Robbins Lumber and the community rallying around them after a devastating fire — a reminder of what really matters in this industry. Then Trent steers the ship (loosely) through lumber pricing that's about as exciting as a flat board, mortgage rates that just hit a nine-month high right as summer heats up, and gas pric...

This week Natalie and Trent are back with your Friday fix — and honestly, the market is giving them very little to work with. Lumber prices? Barely moved. Mortgage rates? Blinked down a hair. Applications? A polite nudge upward. But don't let the flatline fool you — there's plenty to dig into: two different "Builder Supply Companies" got acquired in the same week (yes, really), Interfor's Q1 numbe...

The crew is back from back-to-back trips and running on fumes and good intel. Chelsea just got home from the NAWLA Regional in Vancouver, BC, where 210 industry insiders gathered to talk about the very real pressure Canadian producers are under - and spoiler: it wasn't a warm and fuzzy room. Natalie swung through Louisiana for her CFO 10-group and got a firsthand look at how different logging oper...

The Newswire crew is back and they've got a lot of ground to cover — lumber prices on the move, mortgage rates hitting their lowest point in three spring seasons, and Brad Jacobs casually dropping a $17 billion acquisition on a Sunday afternoon with a "have a nice Sunday" energy that the rest of us can only aspire to. QXO's TopBuild deal is reshaping the supply chain landscape, West Fraser is jugg...

Ken Timmins, commodity trader at American International Forest Products and host of the Component Connection podcast, stops by to explain what actually happens on a 55-person lumber trading floor -and how he got hired by eating donuts in a sweater vest on zero hours of sleep. Ken breaks down the three pillars of trading (market analyst, sales, hard work), why lumber is more emotional than a third-...

Lumber prices are holding at $5.23 but don't get too comfortable — 2x4 #2 is getting scarce and construction input costs are up nearly 5% year over year, with crude petroleum doing the most damage (Natalie's paying $148 to fill her diesel tank, which is its own kind of tragedy). The Montreal Wood Convention drew a big crowd with Canada-US tariffs as the unofficial theme, Mirax is firing up the for...

AR7 preliminary results are in — and we've got thoughts. Or at least, we have the numbers and a strong commitment to neutrality. From there, consolidation nation delivers: UFP Industries' Decorators brand scoops up MoistureShield assets, Bed Bath & Beyond apparently didn't get the memo that they went bankrupt and is now acquiring Lumber Liquidators' parent company and the Container Store, and Tren...

Year two at the Mass Timber Conference for their 10 year anniversary and we're practically locals. We're recording live from the Union Ironworkers booth — on the second floor of a structure they built inside the Oregon Convention Center — talking show stats, Shark Tank-style investor pitches, and why every lumber person should have this conference on their radar. Then we sit down with Neveah, an a...

It's Good Friday, lumber prices are up, and Claude personally removed Trent from the podcast for being a non-believer. (He's fine. Probably.) This week: WS Building Materials makes its debut, Mead Lumber keeps stacking locations, QXO finally closes on Kodiak, Rainier gets a new logo (the panel has thoughts), and mortgage rates are doing absolutely no one any favors. Also: Buc-ee's, Aperol Spritzes...

Natalie has laryngitis. Chelsea has opinions about the Brawny Man. Trent has mortgage rate news that nobody asked for but everybody needed. This week's episode is equal parts industry intel and chaos — the good kind. We're tracking rising lumber prices, freight rates that are giving Chelsea serious COVID-era flashbacks, and mortgage applications that just fell off a cliff. Oh, and that mystery exe...

33.33% of us are back from the NAWLA T-100 conference in Dana Point. This week's episode covers what made T-100 different from Traders Market, why smaller and more intimate sometimes means bigger picture, and what Chelsea brought back to her company from being in a room with some of the top leaders in the lumber industry. They also celebrate a historic moment, Donna Whitaker becoming the first fem...

This week Trent Johnson and Chelsea Zuccato cover: Windy city weather and atmospheric river in Oregon. Flatbed spot rates hit their highest point since October 2022, If you're buying or selling lumber on delivered pricing, this matters right now. The mood at the LMC show in Chicago was positive with no negativity on the floor. Mortgage applications ticked up but so did mortgage rates. March is goi...

The International Mass Timber Conference is three weeks out and this year it's doing something we've never seen before. We sat down with Shelby Cherry, Show Director for the International Mass Timber Conference, to get the inside track on what's coming — and let's just say the 10th anniversary is going to be a good time! We're talking live investor pitches, a keynote from one of the most influenti...

Trent's back from his cruise, slightly sunburned and somehow more productive than ever. This week all three amigos are reunited — and there's a lot to catch up on. We're talking a brand new industry column making its debut, a wave of M&A activity putting the Midwest on the map, some notable personnel moves, and the market signal lumber has been waiting on for a long time. Tune in — then email us a...

In this episode, Natalie and Chelsea sit down with Steve Rigdon — enrolled Yakama Nation member, former general manager of Yakama Forest Products, and current Tribal Partnership & Resource Stewardship Manager at Sustainable Northwest. Steve shares his remarkable journey from wildland firefighter to mill GM to policy advocate, and what it means to steward forests the way Indigenous communities have...

Trent's on vacation, which means Natalie and Chelsea are flying solo - and things get wonderfully unfiltered. The episode kicks off with breaking news: the Supreme Court's 6-3 ruling against Trump's sweeping tariffs. Spoiler: it's mostly a nothing burger for lumber, since softwood falls under Section 232. From there, the duo breaks down spring lumber inventory sentiment, covers Builders First Sour...

Big week for Patrick Lumber as Chelsea Zuccato moves into VP of Sales & Marketing, plus leadership updates from Lena Jacobson and John Quast. The industry's buzzing over QXO's $2.25 billion acquisition of Kodiak Building Partners. Trent breaks down Q4 earnings from West Fraser and Interfor, and the crew debates whether it's time to drop the word "cautiously" from their market outlook. Mortgage rat...

In this episode of Lumber Slingers, Chelsea and Trent kick things off with a little pop-culture fun before diving into what’s happening across the lumber and housing markets. The conversation covers several major industry updates, including the official close of the Rainier–PotlatchDeltic merger, leadership transitions at Romack, and a production realignment announcement from Roseburg Forest Produ...

Black Pink fandom, music video nostalgia, and why hawkish is apparently the Fed’s favorite bird. This week on Lumber Slingers, we cover a packed news cycle-starting with pop culture and ending deep in the lumber markets. We break down the surprise nomination of Kevin Warsh as the next Fed Chair, what his historically hawkish stance could mean for inflation and interest rates, and why the Fed’s dec...

Real Housewives of Boring, Oregon: confirmed by a 65-year-old waitress at brunch. Also: Trent just admitted he listens to MP3s. Yes, in 2026 Lumber news hits: a couple M&A items, production curtailments vs. closures, a James Hardie footprint optimization , and a positive expansion announcement. Then the macro corner: 30-year mortgage rates hovering up and a big jump in mortgage applications. The e...

Chelsea and Trent ease into the new year catching up on holiday travel mishaps and family time to a fast-moving start to the year in forest products, this episode captures exactly how January feels: full speed, no warm-up. Inside this episode: A look at how the holidays actually went (blizzards, extended stays, Fortnite wins, and all) Early-year momentum in mergers & acquisitions across the buildi...

It’s a full-on hat day as Natalie, Chelsea, and Trent kick off with swag talk.. Then they run through a rapid-fire lumber news roundup: major acquisitions, mill curtailments and closures, leadership changes, mortgage data, and Madison’s Lumber Price Index—before signing off for a Christmas break and teeing up what could get interesting in early 2026. Email us Lumberslingers@gmail.com

In this special crossover episode, we’re rebroadcasting our recent appearance on Get Real with Rick Dancer. Rick flips the script and interviews us about how Lumber Slingers started, why we’re so passionate about changing the narrative around timber, and what it looks like to build a people-first culture at Patrick Lumber Company. We talk about everything from making lumber “sexy” again and attrac...

Natalie, Trent, and Chelsea kick things off with some classic airport chaos. They circle through Kansas City’s new airport (featuring Patrick Lumber hemlock), detour to South Dakota’s Corn Palace, and then get into the actual news: Stella-Jones closing on Brooks Manufacturing, BlueLinx expanding, a new Mead Lumber yard, leadership changes at Roy O'Martin, mortgage-rate chatter (including portable...

Live from NAWLA Traders Market, we trade booth noise for breaking news: BlueLinx buys Disdero, Chinook strikes a deal to acquire South Coast, West Fraser announces permanent closures, and Trex expands distribution in Michigan. Plus: travel chaos watch, swag report, and a lightning round on mortgage rates, apps, Madison’s prices, and (yes) the “word of the year.” Questions or comments? email us at...