- My name is Ron Skaggs, I'm the owner of Cole Creek Creations and we make barn wood caskets, out of old barn wood and barns throughout the Northern Illinois.

Well, I'm one of 10, lived out in the country and my dad used to make toys for us and what have you, and he ended up remodeling homes and building cabinets and stuff.

And I learned from him how to do a lot of things.

I loved woodworking because we did what we did.

We got away from that when we got into the heavy equipment and the trucks and what have you.

But when that all fell apart in 1980, then I bought a truck, went trucking for 4.2 million miles.

But I've had this casket idea in my head all these years I was driving.

When you drive that many miles and many hours a day that I was driving, folks, you have a lot of time to think.

I had lost a brother by then and one of the reasons why things fell apart back in 1980.

And then another brother was killed later on a few years later.

And I just noticed there was something missing in the funeral business, I guess, that needed more personalization.

This old wood has always intrigued me and I built quite a few things out of this old wood and decided I could do this.

So we've been at it 14 years, I think it is this year.

It's taken me quite a few years to get these to look like they look.

Yeah, here is gonna be hanging right here, so it's gonna lose a little bit of that one.

To build a new casket out of the old wood, because there's so many different pieces and kinds, some are more rustic than others, I'll have something in my head.

Do I need something with a lot of rustic, a lot of cracks and nails and a lot of character or do we go for something a little smoother and better?

So I may spend half a morning doing this.

Yeah, that's probably got too much, you know, something like that.

Or here's one here, but they got character that you just can't find anywhere.

Now, we're ready to start on a new one here, I selected a board that's got a lot of character and knots and we're gonna start cleaning it up.

(tool whirring) Particular board, I would probably use it for the end pieces and I would try to space this out to where my handle fits in between these two knots.

(tool whirring) (positive music) Being able to personalize these and then, at the end, after the funeral, the family gets over $300 worth of stuff back in their hands.

They can take these home with them, the six on the side and two big long ones on the end.

And they're all handmade.

There's nobody in the world has these but us.

They are two pieces.

You can move them together, put in a pistol or a knife, something of value of that person.

Fishing poles, there's been several firemen buried in our caskets, they put a piece of fire hose and a nozzle on there.

There's been quite a few ladies buried in there, they've hung aprons on here.

These are the keys that lock the casket, there's two of them in there and they are the old time skeletons keys from the 1800s, and they're solid brass and the family gets to keep these and that's what locks these caskets.

I have pictures that you can pick and put your own picture in there.

And last but not least, you can hang something up here that means something to them.

An old hat, old pair of gloves, something they must have worn.

My wife makes all the interiors.

- We have a lot of people that seem to like the camouflage.

We have a camouflage that has a faux leather around the edges of the pillow to kind of offset it.

This one seems to suit a lot of farmers or hunters.

We have a couple over here that are for just ladies pretty much.

It's got a kind of a neutral flower print on it.

It just is representative of the lifestyle that somebody had.

It just speaks to them.

Like I said, it's not going to speak to a lot of people, a lot of people are gonna want perfect and shiny and glossy, and that's just simply not us.

And so, this speaks to the people that we are and the people that we relate to.

- It's rewarding that you can give somebody something that they can show what that person did with their life.

You asked me about my brothers.

When I build these and I come up with these ideas, that's who I'm thinking of, when my dad, if I'd have had something like this for my brothers, it'd be hanging on the wall of fame up here and the key would be in my pocket.

I just wonder what they would think of me for doing this, and I think they'd be proud of me.

I'm sure proud of all of them.

Every one of these caskets has got my fingerprints on it.

There's not one of them that goes out here that I haven't, that I do everything, build to, and then my wife does all the interiors and we both have a hard time when we get to thinking about, you know, every family, this is gonna go to somebody, somebody that they love and we try to give them the best of what we have and hopefully they can personalize this enough to make it part of their family.

The most rewarding thing I've ever done in my life, they're not for everyone, the ones that they are for is the reason why we do it for, and you don't have to explain it, I mean, it's unspoken.

It's just a wonderful thing that you feel in your heart.