This has been kind of an interesting couple of projects for me. First off, I was contacted by a client who couldn't get anyone to take on her project (which is pretty normal for me). She would be providing all of the lumber for the project, it came from a tree that had fallen on her farm in Gaston, OR.
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I was pretty skeptical when she reached out, especially since she wanted a large wall covered in white oak, plus a storage bench, and a libraries worth of shelving made and put up. To add to the complexity of it all, she was now living in a 4th story downtown Portland loft that has metal studs which I had never worked with before. Finally, the wood was already dried and milled, but it was all milled into flooring.
When I saw the wood, in endless piles throughout her home, it became clear that it had been sitting there for a long time. It was originally intended to be the floor at her farmhouse, but when her husband passed she couldn't keep up the property and this lumber was something that she just couldn't let go of. She had been living with stacked in her loft for about a year now. I've really built my business on helping people with odd circumstances so, despite my concerns I decided to give it a go.
It turned out to be a phenomenal amount of work. More than I ever imagined. The goal was to keep the natural look of the flooring with as minimal change to it as possible. When I started to install, I was surprised how many of the T&G joints no longer fit, and how many when together, didn't come anywhere close to lining up flush on the surface. It made for a desperately long and painful installation that required re-milling a lot of the T&G and standing on ladders for hours trying to get everything in. When it was all said and done, I think it turned out pretty nice:
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I'm quite social with my clients. Probably too much sometimes. After spending about two weeks in her loft doing this install you could say we were as close to friends as a contractor and client can become. Even so, I was a little shocked when I finished and we looked around the loft at an insane amount of left over lumber. "Would you be willing to accept the rest of the wood as a gift?" I was pretty floored. I calculated it out to be about 500 board feet remaining. I accepted, but sometimes I've felt like I've gone mad bringing home so much flooring with the idea that it will make it into other projects.
A few months after completing her library wall one of her best friends contacted me and asked if there was any wood left. She wanted a media cabinet made out of the same wood. I was skeptical, again, because the effort to build something out of flooring was going to be so much work. However, I of course am a sucker for odd projects in challenging conditions so I accepted and cast off into the realm of turning high character stack of flooring into their "forever cabinet" Removing T&G, milling out the kerf, running as many nails as possible through my dewalt planer. More than anything, I don't have much experience gluing up large amounts of 1/2" boards that are only 2-4" wide. I always seem to work with larger, wider stock. This almost felt like building a piece of butcher block furniture. When finished, the client was beyond thrilled and I was quite pleased with the way the character of the wood came together. I made my first attempt at a "professional" photo by using my iphone and a milwaukee lantern. I'm pretty pleased with the results.
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I still have an absurd amount of wood leftover. The best pieces are sitting in my shop while the sappy bug eaten pieces are stored in my outdoor woodshed. I'm not sure exactly what I'll do with it all, but it's definitely some interesting wood and a lot of work to bring about a finished piece.
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