The Beauty of Wood

As we tore down the original farmhouse we asked our contractor, Tracy, to save any old beams he came across.  Despite the destructive nature of the heavy equipment used and, oh yeah, the years of termite damage, he managed to salvage some nice timbers for us.  Looking at this wood got me thinking.  If the house was built in 1892, how old must the wood be that came out of it?  Some of those timbers are quite large.  The larger pieces in the left photo below were 8" x 8" and 12 to 16 feet long.  Those are some huge, old trees...milled in or before 1892!

Oh, the history that wood has seen!

There's a future farmhouse table (frame) in that pile of lumber somewhere.

Pegs...because nails just aren't enough!

Rough sawmilled wood and old square steel nails

I imagine men like in the photo below, hammering in these nails to build the old farmhouse.

Not the actual carpenters of the original farmhouse

We are hoping to use some of that wood in the construction of our new house.  We have some ideas such as a fireplace mantle, framing a large doorway, the aforementioned farm house table that I intend to build using the smaller pieces (4x4s and 2x4s).  We also have that huge cedar tree that we're having milled as mentioned in a previous post.  I hope to use some of that for a coffee table and maybe some smaller tables on our porch and who knows what else.

Walking around the big barn we have also found other wood that we'd like to use for "something".  The loft of that barn is about 16' x 36' (give or take) and it's entirely built with cypress planks.

More sawmilled lumber at our disposal.  Could be used as "shiplap" maybe?

Tracy vetoed our idea to use it as (free) flooring as cypress is too soft, but an accent wall?  Maybe...  Horizontal wainscoting?  Perhaps.  There's plenty of it to use and it would look better in our house than in a barn somewhere.

Neta found this last weekend.  Another vintage piece of lumber that we'll figure out a use for.

It's lined with peg holes.  I joked that it was a giant's cribbage board.

Here are some more pictures I took as I walked around the big barn.  I snapped whatever caught my eye.  Looking at them it becomes obvious that I like lines/patterns.  Must be my inner control freak. Mosaics are confusing.

It's got a little lean, but that's part of it's charm.

Back at the little barn and I took this picture of the side of it.  I love those planks.  Maybe some of them could find themselves attached to the farm house table frame as a table top.  We'll see...

As you can see, we have no shortage of reclaimed or sawmilled wood that we can use for so many things.

Sometimes I walk around the farm and remind myself that we own such a wonderful place and think of all the potential that comes with it.  I'm sure to some folks owning a 50 acre farm in rural Georgia is not necessarily a dream life, but to me it has become just that.  I could be happy living just about anywhere, as there is no perfect place, as long as I had a large piece of land to enjoy. I'd love to capture elements from my childhood home around the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, the climate of San Diego and the fresh air and mountains of the Colorado Rockies, along with the wide open plains.  If you find that place, and they have land for sale, please let me know.

Looking around the farm we both see so much around here to re-purpose, fix up, clean up and change, but most of all we love what we see and can't wait to watch as it evolves.  It's become a beautiful place to us already.

Neta enjoying her "Honeysuckle Bench" on Mother's Day