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One of the coolest Idea Houses I worked on is now toast. Lightning started a massive fire that burnt the River Dunes, NC home to the ground earlier this month. It is a such a waste of a gorgeous home.

Saddest thing to me is that the 4′ x 7′ red oak dining table that was custom built from old barn timbers was presumably also destroyed by the fire. It was a beautiful piece—pardon my prejudice—that I really enjoyed building. You can see more pictures of the table here and there is a shot of it in the news video above.

This weekend was beautiful here in AL. So, I was able to make progress on Kelly’s dining table. This first image shows one half of the top (leaned up against the wall), one of the leg supports, and the second half of the table on the floor. The larger spots on the table top have been filled and sanded to medium grade. Final sanding will wait until just before finishing with a penetrating oil. The leg support pictured has not been rough sanded yet. The second half of the table top is still about 10″ short of where it needs to be so I have a few more planks to fit.

The second leg support has been fitted and joined but the glue is drying as of now.

So it is coming along. It is going to be rustic and beautiful!

Making some progress on the dining table for Kelly S. I have planed all the boards I think I will need for the table top (a bit more than 1 inch thick) and have begun to cut 4 ft sections that will be joined lengthwise with dowels to form the two halves of the table top. From the picture you can see there is some cool graining, knots, bug trails, and the some spots that have the scars of rough sawing. All of these will be very cool when finished. These are only a few of the 4ft sections I will need. Each of these has to have the edges cleaned up–I do this with my table saw since I do not have a jointer. Cleaning up the edges can be a pain in the $%** because pitch builds up on the blade and causes it to stick and sometimes stalls the saw. I have to clean the blade occasionally. But, little my little the pieces will come together and become a useful, beautiful thing—all from something that had a previous life holding up a barn roof.

I have been commissioned to build another dining table like the one I built for the Coastal Living Idea House in River Dunes, NC. I am very excited about it and asked Kelly S. (the owner of the finished table) if I could blog about it. So, it begins.

Yesterday, in frigid weather uncharacteristic of the South, I drove to Cullman, AL to pick up salvaged oak timbers from Southern Accents Architectural Antiques (see my previous post). These are the same timbers I used for the CLv table. The timbers came from roof supports on an old barn. The guys at SAAA pulled the nails and sawed the timbers in half (roughly) lengthwise. The wood has some really neat features besides old nail holes. There are bug trails and knots and some have really great oak figuring. My next step is to plane it to the proper thickness for the table top. As rough as this is now, it is neat to see what it will become and how beautiful the finished wood is.

Photo by Jean Allsopp

Some projects are too good to pass up, even if they are huge and you have a regular job. I finished one recently for a 7ft by 4 ft dining table custom built for the 10th Anniversary Coastal Living Idea House in River Dunes, NC. It was a lot of fun to build but a handle to get finished on time.

I was given two pictures by the designer who said “can you take this part of this picture and use that part of this other picture and make a table?” Well, yes. The wood came from Southern Accents in Cullman, AL and was reclaimed red oak timbers from a barn. Rustic as the day is long!

The challenge came in getting the joints to line up well. The wood was simply beautiful–loved it. [See pictures of it here] I made it in 5 pieces that connected using minimal hardware. Shipping it was a challenge, but upon arrival everyone was happy. It looked good in the house which was photographed in August and will appear in the November issue of Coastal Living. They did add a slight stain to the top to make it better match the wood flooring and lessen some of the redness of the wood. I liked the original penetrating oil finish, but I loved how the table looked in place with the chairs and settees.

This was a great project and I am so pleased to have had the opportunity to showcase how beautiful reclaimed wood can be. I hope to have additional challenges to make something old new again.