Great Spirit Hardwoods

Incredible quality and great experience working with Great Spirit Hardware for my custom live edge dining table. I made an appointment and met with Skip who walked me through the shop explaining the wood drying process and made a list of features that were most important to me. Affordable pricing, best I've seen for walnut which other sell at high premium. Easy delivery scheduling. Absolutely love the end result and that I was able to get my table made locally.

My wife and I moved last year and were looking for live edge black walnut furniture for our new house. We feel very lucky to have come across Great Spirit Hardwoods. They listened to what we were looking for and made great recommendations. They ultimately manufactured a high quality, beautiful dining table, shelving units, benches and floating shelves for us and we are absolutely delighted with the results ! Excellent craftmanship, friendly to work with and great communication throughout the entire process. Highly recommended !!!

I recently had the pleasure to meet Skip and purchase some of his quality hardwood slabs. I was able to get three absolutely gorgeous pieces. Two are nearly 30 in wide and close to 10 ft long, with a two and a half inches thickness. That in itself is impressive what really blew my mind was the fact that they were nearly dead flat and almost completely clear, free of imperfections. Not that there's anything wrong with imperfections in wood that's what makes it beautiful but I have customers sometimes that specifically like wood without knots or other so-called imperfections. And it's a very hard order to fill! I feel like I have truly found a gold mine and and so lucky to have came across this fine business! The owner Skip and his wife are both extremely friendly and thoroughly knowledgeable about all of the woods they use and the techniques to make quality tops. I really feel like I can't say enough positive about this business and its owners and will certainly make them my One Stop Shop for any sizable pieces of lumber or slabs! And I should mention that I'm over two and a half hours away from this location and the 5-Hour plus Drive is well worth it. I've searched throughout the Chicagoland area and down into Central Illinois and it found nothing like this yet. Part of me is reluctant to give such a great review because I would like to keep it a secret, but that would be selfish of me.

Skip is just the best. ALWAYS my go to place for any large pieces or slabs. Truly just an awesome place.

Booking an appointment was easy. When I got there I called the number on the side door and a staff member promptly let me in. I was nervous about going in the store to pick out my boards with the pandemic, but they are taking the precautions very seriously. There was thorough sanitizing and I was the only person in the store. There was a great selection at very reasonable prices. Both large dimensional lumber and a good selection of smaller pieces that would be great for DIY projects. The next time I need hardwood, I am certainly coming here!

Went there to pick up some lumber for a project. All the wood was Select and Better grade, no #1&2 common so I didnt have to cull through a whole pile of lumber for my project. I just loaded up the cart, board after board, and put it in the truck.

The cherry lumber was some really nice stuff, consistent color and zero sap wood. It would make beautiful furniture. All the lumber was nice stock that any serious woodworker or furniture maker would enjoy getting their hands on.

Place also had a showroom of custom pieces and tables. It's worth a trip out to East Dundee to visit Great Spirit Hardwoods, I am happy I made the trip.

I had a wonderful experience at Great Spirit Hardwoods today. Bought some maple, cherry and walnut. Skip was very accommodating with showing his inventory of wood and the store. I was impressed with the quality of wood. It appears the furniture that they make is of a high quality. I recommend Great Spirits Hardwood to anyone wanting to support a local business that appears to have the woodworkers interest at heart.

Great cuts of local and exotic hardwoods. Great Prices on wides, shorts, and mbft lengths. Skip was super patient and super helpful with my 16 year old son on selecting wood for a project. Was nice enough to take us on a tour of his shop and show us a table top he was gluing up. He really has a lot of design and construction experience. We need more craftsman opening stores like this.

Good luck and see you soon!!!

I really enjoy buying my specialty lumber here. Reasonable prices, no pushy salesmen and everyone is super nice. Their calculations on what to charge ($ per board foot) are spot on, and all the lumber is excellent quality, i will be back again and again. Thank you Great Spirit!

This place is a woodworkers gold mine. When you first walk into the shop you end up in the show room showcasing all the hardwood stock on display along with giant tree slabs with live edges. The owner, Skip, is very knowledgeable and very helpful with your project needs. There is also a huge wall of smaller sized wood pieces of all the hardwoods they offer so you don't have to buy a big board if you have a small project in mind. He also sells chunks of live edged slabs.

My first visit there was to use his machining services, need some walnut boards planed and jointed. They turned around the work in 24 hours and was very pleased with the results. Pricing is extremely affordable!

The only negative thing is that the shop is very close to my house, that place is going to take all my money. Again, a woodworkers goldmine!

Awesome customer service, awesome store, awesome services, great prices. As a female, it's so nice to talk to people in this industry that are not condescending. Sabrina is fantastic and helpful. Thanks so much.

We found Skips work on Etsy after searching and searching for a custom table and were so glad we did. We received a custom live edge dining table sent from Illinois to Florida that is absolutely beautiful. He selected the best slabs for the table and takes great pride in his work. Great guy, very friendly and good customer service.

This has become my go to place for hardwood...and I happily drive 30 miles to get there. The quality and selection of kiln dried hardwood is fantastic and the pricing is the best I have seen in a retail setting. They sell rough sawn lumber which is very difficult to find in the Chicagoland area in a retail store... there is no reason to pay higher prices at other dealers who sell only pre-surfaced or dimensional lumber which in too many cases is not flat so you have to mill it anyways and you end up with a final product thinner than what you intended on buying.....the owner Skip is great and happy to provide advice....if you are not a woodworker I would highly suggest you check out the custom furniture they build...beautiful craftsmanship

Amazing pieces. These are more than furniture, they're pieces of art. My husband found this business by searching on line and we drove 3 hours from Indiana to see what they had at their shop that we could have customized for our counter for our new bar. We picked a beautiful 7' x 22" piece and picked it up, on schedule, 2 weeks later and it was absolutely beautiful!!! I'll post before and after pictures once the bar is finished!!

Made my first trip here on my way back to Chicago from Wisconsin. I think it was probably the best experience I’ve ever had at a hardwood dealer.

The appointment system is really nice, I know it’s a COVID measure but I wouldn’t mind if it was the norm. It takes all the stress out of trying to maneuver around aisles that get crowed very quickly when you’re digging through stacks.

I needed around 20bdft of rift and quartersawn clear walnut heartwood, something that’s usually a pain to dig out but I got all of it in a few pieces after pulling only 6 or 7 boards. Not sure if it was all luck or if they’re just more selective with what goes on the rack.

Rough sawn and full thickness are a big bonus, I’ve had to buy 5/4 at the places that skip plane or it would be too thin after final milling. Love that their price sheets are posted and open, cheaper than my usual place, too.

If it wasn’t such a trek from Chicago these guys would be my go to.

Love this place. They have a lot of beautiful pieces in their showroom and also have a great selection of slabs available. Skip is awesome and has always been willing to share knowledge when I've gone there to buy wood for projects.

I recently purchased a vanity top for a project I am doing in Vernon Hills. I initially intended to get walnut, but Skip, the owner of Great Spirit Hardwoods, suggested sapele (which I had never heard of) as an alternative, both for its cost and its beautiful grain. Boy was he right. The top was milled precisely to the template and was wonderfully planed and jointed, and the grain was beautiful. Skip made a few suggestions on how I might finish it, and those too worked out extremely well. Skip runs a top-notch operation and is a pleasure to work with. Highest recommendation.

We bought a piece of live edge walnut for a floating bathroom vanity. The crew at Great Spirit were simply amazing and did a great job with the piece. Courteous, affordable, and highly skilled. Here is the final product.

Made the first of many what I'm guessing will be many purchases here. They had great lumber at even better prices, I had to hold myself back from picking up a lot more than I needed. The owner Skip is friendly, knowledgable, and accomodating. Will be back soon!

I bought two walnut slabs for my bar and a bookmatched set of slabs for my wall. They were finished and installed on my wall as art, they are unbelievable! Everyone who sees them asks about them and wants a pair.