Luke and Erica's new baby is due in a few months and that means the nest needs to
be finished soon. Luke is an artist, and can
see about a thousand possible solutions for
any situation. At some point you have to
chose one of them and get going. He's been
working around his kitchen counter tops for
a good long while now. Finally about two
weeks ago we took a road trip past some of
my favorite vineyards to the thriving
metropolis of Willamina, Oregon. This town
has been hard hit by sawmill closings and
reduced logging in this economic downturn.
There is a shop downtown, right next to the public library where a young man reclaims wood from old farms and urban landscapes. He has an amazing selection of walnut, cedar, ash and Oregon white oak. First Luke had to decide what type of wood he wanted to use. Only it wasn't that simple. Luke also had some old flooring at home that his brother had reclaimed from an old house and he wanted to use that as well. So, the final product is a blend of Oregon Ash, walnut, mahogany, and some dark, exotic hardwoods.
One of the most fun parts of the job was watching Luke carefully place each board until the entire arrangement looked aesthetically pleasing. He must have rearranged them several dozens of times before he was happy with the result.
Some of the boards have insect holes in them. (There is a close up photo of some of these to the right.) To some people such imperfections would render the wood useless. To me they make the wood even more beautiful. We have 140 year old fir floors in our house and some of my favorite sections of the floor are those places where insects have made ruts and patterns in the wood. The next decision Luke had to make was how much of his counter top was going to be wood, and how much was going to be concrete. He finally settled on two pieces of wood situated on either side of the stove with concrete sections forming a u-shape butting up to each wood piece. We spent the better part of a day cutting the wood down to size and then gluing it together. Luke wanted a full two and an eighth inches of counter top, which is a lot of wood. It turns out I have a lot of clamps. (You can never have too many, but I have quite a few.) You need a lot of torque to get the wood to come together and then stay in place. Once the glue has dried, the joints are incredibly strong, and the wood around the glue will probably fail before the glued section will. The pieces turned out beautifully. Luke decided to finish the wood with oil, so we were able to get a coat on right after we sanded them down. It is so fun to add the oil to the newly sanded wood surfaces and see the texture and color jump out at you. It is also delightful to rub the oil into the wood with your hands. Very tactile. Very fun. I'll be excited to see them in place once Luke gets them installed and the new concrete in place. He's on a mission to get this project done, so I'm guessing it won't take him long. We finished the wood sections today and he was heading home to finish the forms for the concrete. I see a happy expectant mother in his future, with a finished kitchen and a fully nested household.