Category Archives: furnishing

Old growth milling for library shelves

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About the same time as the idea of a library emerged, I learned about the value of old growth lumber and how it is sought after by furniture makers. Old growth lumber was harvested from pre-settlement forests and has beautiful dense grain. It was also milled to different dimensions. For instance, old growth two by four studs do actually measure two by four inches.

Because our house was built in 1902, all the original framing was old growth. Some of that old growth had to be replaced during our deep-energy retrofit. I did, however, made sure to hold on to all the old growth material we removed because it was the perfect source material for our library.

I did not plan to build the library shelves out of two by four studs! That would look a little bit to clunky for our taste. Instead my plan was to mill the old growth into the right sized pieces which we could glue into boards and use for shelving.

But there was a science to the milling. With the help of friends, I learned a lot about wood grain and different wood cuts. For instance, a rift and/or quarter sawn cut would give us the most beautiful grain structure and deliver dimensionally stable lumber.

Prior to running the old growth across the table saw we looked at the end grain of each stud to determine how best to cut it to get a rift or quarter sawn cut.

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Pot rack

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Let me try something very different today: This is my attempt to write up a recipe using only leftovers.

We have a very nice and useful collection of cooking pots and cast iron pans, but they’ve begun to clutter up our kitchen. That sparked the idea for a recipe with left-overs. Here we go:

Ingredients:

  • Salvaged old growth stud scraps (preferably close to a 100 years old)
  • Leftover 5/8 inch poplar dowels
  • Leftover wood glue
  • Leftover VOC free lacquer

Preparation:

Carefully place the old growth scraps on prepared saw horses and clean them (some people refer to this process in a rather rough and tumble way as de-nailing).

To assure the most delicious surface texture, I recommend rubbing the old growth studs with 60 grit sandpaper first, followed by 120 grit. For the gourmets among us, keep rubbing with 200 grit.

Core the cleaned and prepared old growth scraps at the desired intervals. For the best possible presentation, it is recommended to match the core size exactly with the size of the leftover dowels.

Next, chop the leftover dowels into the appropriate lengths. Shorter pieces feed into the old growth scrap connection. Longer pieces stretch across.

Carefully marinate the short pieces in wood glue and immediately insert into the prepared old growth scraps. Only marinate the ends of the long pieces and immediately place into the prepared cores.

Carefully clamp the ingredients and let rest for at least 12 hours.

Remove clamps and glaze with two coats of the leftover VOC lacquer. It is recommended to let each coat bake at room temperature for about four hours.

Et voilà, a wonderful pot rack entirely made from leftovers!

  

Basement kitchen bragging

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Oh yes! I will once again invoke my bragging rights and tell you how much of a cheapskate I really am…

The big secret: You don’t need to buy new. If you schedule it right (by leaving yourself enough time to go scavenging) you can save a lot of money and resources by turning to the salvage and reuse market. You can begin to reshape your own footprint.

Take the wall and island cabinets. The former was a steal we found on Craigslist, while the latter was purchased at the ReBuilding Exchange. Ok, the island cabinets needed some work (cladding on the back and side). But I took care of that with our salvaged old growth lumber.

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While I am on the subject of salvaged old growth lumber: It also provided us the material  for the open counter top base to the left and right of the stove.

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The stove was a Craigslist purchase, whereas the dishwasher came from the ReBuilding Exchange.

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As you have recently read, the solid surface counter top was a purchase from the Habitat for Humanity ReStore. The heavy duty, cast iron sink with white enamel also came from the ReBuilding Exchange, while the backsplash stone tiles were a salvage item from our 1st floor kitchen installation. They were also bought from the ReStore.

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Some items are more difficult to purchase from the salvage and reuse market than others. This can be due to scheduling constraints (i.e. I need that thing now!), or availability. Here is a list of the items that we had to purchased new:

The items we were able to source from the salvage and reuse market are:

We spent an estimated $1,880 on materials for the basement kitchen! If I add the miscellaneous hardware items, we may have spent as much as $2,200.

That is our kind of price tag and our kind of kitchen!

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Buttoning up the basement kitchen

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With the counter top installed on the sink base, it was time to get the leftover stone tiles from the 1st floor kitchen and start installing the tile backsplash. I was in a hurry to get to it so that tile thinset had time to cure before we got to the grouting.

In the mean time, we glued the remaining counter top pieces to the plywood base and clamped them down until the low VOC adhesive had set.

Next on the list was some plumbing. We needed to extend the hot water line by five feet for the dishwasher connection. I decided that hard piping was the safe route to take.

By now a day had passed and we could start with grouting the tile backsplash. Because the stone tiles are porous, I had to seal them. I still had some of the low VOC sealant left over that I could use.

Installing the sink was next, followed by completing the dishwasher installation, putting the cabinet doors back in place and cleaning up. I now could put my attention to a couple of details.

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I dug up a nice piece of old growth lumber that I milled down and intended to use as a cantilevered mini shelf right above the tile back splash. This will be a useful storage surface, and a nice finishing edge to the top of the back splash

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I also got a handful of the salvaged maple hardwood floor boards out, cleaned them up and sanded them so that they were nice and smooth. These were perfect pieces for the cabinet toe kick.

Et voilà, we finally have a finished kitchen in the garden unit!

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I now have to find an answer to an important question from Cathy: “Why couldn’t we have had a nice kitchen like this when we lived here?”

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Countertop fitting

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Despite the awkward angles, our two open couner top bases fit right into place. I put it down to the cardboard templates we used, and which will come in handy again.

We also put the sink base and island back into place and started cutting and fitting the ¾ inch plywood support. It sits on top of the cabinet or open bases, and under the ½ inch solid surface counter top. The plywood adds extra stability and is the medium to which we glue the counter top.

Cutting and fitting the solid surface counter top material took a little research. The recommended method we came across was using a circular saw with a triple chip saw blade. And that indeed gave us smooth and chip-free cuts. To cut the sink opening, we used the jigsaw with a metal blade.

Our cardboard template proved to be indispensable when it came to cutting the counter top for the two open bases. It allowed us to get the angles right and a square connection to the sink base and island.

We ended the day by glueing down the sink base counter top and backsplash. That would allow us to get started on the tile back splash the next day.

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