ListWise

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

I’m Casing The Joint

I’m sort of in a holding pattern this week. The chimney liner won’t arrive until Friday and I can’t start to plaster until I get that in. I did, finally, get the last of the mill work from the mill. There were 4 parts to the order and getting the last of it was like pulling teeth. Click here to read a good story about the mill and the corner blocks I ordered.

Eric, the owner of the mill, is a real craftsman but he can be difficult to work with. You have to be patient and you have to keep prodding him. It is like he has a short attention span. He likes the glamorous stuff like the corner blocks or raised paneled wainscoting he did for me as part of the same order. When it comes to the simple stuff, like the casing, he seems to lose interest and it never gets done.

He is a nice guy though, and he does great work, so I keep going back. Yesterday, when I was at the mill getting the door casing we got to talking about the door I made (you all remember The Door) and other things. I then mentioned that I had found some old growth 1X6 fir flooring. It is really cool stuff. It is milled by a guy in Placerville. He takes 120 year old salvaged 3X12 floor joists from an old mill in Alaska and makes 1X6 fir flooring out of it. The stuff is hard as a rock. The trouble is shipping. It needs to be shipped freight and a lot of freight operators won’t ship to a residential address. Eric tells me, no problem, just have them ship it to my mill here and then you can come get it. He gives me the name and number of shipper he works with all the time. You can’t beat building relationships with people.


That is 120 feet of 1X6 redwood casing. To the left is some salvaged 1X6 redwood crown molding that will go on the kitchen cabinets.



That is a sample of the 1895 casing on top and the new stuff on the bottom.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow! That casing looks amazing - AND is made of old growth wood to boot! It’s such an awesome feeling when you get to reinstall original quality trim - it’s as if the clock has been turned back and you get to see how it looked brand new.
No one could understand why I salvaged all of the original 2X4's when I had to rebuild several interior walls of my 1923 Craftsman House - until now when I took the said 2X4's and milled then into true 1" dimension lumber for replacement kitchen cabinets. Even though it has taken me many times longer to prep all of the wood, the grain is stunning, matches all of the original trim and is as hard as a rock. It’s very difficult to tell the difference between the old and new, as it looks like its all original.
I have really enjoyed reading about your millwork adventures with old wood am glad to see wonderful old house so carefully brought back to life.
Best wishes -

Greg said...

I love salvage. I have saved a ton of money reusing old lumber or buy salvaged material. Having the casing made of salvaged lumber cost 1/10th the cost of using new lumber.

Anonymous said...

awesome 3x.