04/11/2024
Been working on a big house remodel since the New Year. Staying close to home these days so I can work on finishing my tiny house, update on that to come later.
This is my first major ‘sticks and bricks’ house project (that’s what us nomads call stationary houses 🙃) and my first complete design project. Usually my builds are more of a collaboration of ideas with customers. Rob and Teresa had some great ideas that we implemented but I’m really proud of this design. It’s one of the most gratifying things in the world, to take a vision in your mind and implement it all the way through to reality and the finished project.
This house is about 100 years old and this space has always been the draftiest room in the house. I stripped the dining room all the way down to studs, the piano room had been reinsulated and sheet rocked previously. Re-insulated and sealed up air gaps in the walls and the windows so it’s much more efficient to heat. This was my first attempt at drywalling and I feel like I picked up on the tape and mud techniques really quick.
The built-in wall in this room is truly my pride and joy. At Christmas time I saw an ad on FB for a houseful of free oak trim being torn out and I hustled my butt over to collect. I left with a trailer full of old quarter-sawn oak. When we started this remodel I wanted to give my mom a space to display her beloved book collection (or part of it 🙃) and envisioned a beautiful oak built in library-style space with china display. I took the trailer of oak woodwork and after 6 full weeks of crafting, finished the built in. I wanted to challenge myself to improve my skills of what I call fine woodworking in this project. My personal goal was less than 20 screws in the entire built in, not counting installation. I ended up using 10 screws in the construction, and approximately 350 dowels, several bottles of glue and many dado and rabbet joints. The widest board in the lot was 5” so we got VERY good at jointing boards! Each piece was framed up in my shop and installed subsequently into the wall. There are 36 shelves, each one built/cut by hand.
We ended up buying about 8 board feet of oak (the whole thing has about 110 board feet) to finish the built-in, everything else was upcycled. I made my own dovetail drawer slides for the first time, and built the drawers from scratch. I used new cherry wood for the drawer faces to add a little different grain. The wainscoating got paint stained to break up the wood in the room and I love the transition in that to the wall paper (Teresa’s touch ☺️) The hardwood floor installation/finish was my first time also. I discovered things I’d do different but if you’re not on your hands and knees it looks pretty good 😁
I learned so much in this project and am so proud of the work, and the fact that it will live forever in my parents house where I grew up 🤗
Thanks for the business and the faith my dear parents and for letting me bring this vision to life in your amazing old farm house ♥️
