Lift it.

Took a trip recently to The Hardwood Store in Gibsonville, NC. Right in between Greensboro and Chapel Thrill. Normally I patronize Steve Wall Lumber but the last time I was there I made a note to check on their 5/4 quarter-sawn white oak (lots of quarters in this post) supply since the upcoming Stanley Table would require quite a bit. They only had about 100 board feet at the time. When I called to check their supplies again... it was still the same. Called The Hardwood store, they had about 2000. Their supply of exotic stock is not what Steve Wall's is, but I stick to domestic hardwoods grown sustainably anyway. They had some beautiful white oak that had been roughly surfaced in order to see the grain clearly. I spent about 2 hours going through every board and picked their best. I was looking for very straight grain with some ray flecking typical in quarter-sawn oak, but not so much that it is overwhelming. I guess I really wanted rift sawn. But when the flecks come up, they will stand out and give some serious character to the table.

I have been to The Hardwood Store a few times and the people there have always been super friendly and helpful. Prices were similar to Wall Lumber and in the case of Q-sawn white oak... cheaper. I will make my visits more frequent.

Oh yeah... white oak is heavy... ridiculously. I was tired. But the shop has smelled sooooooo good since its arrival. May be the best smell on earth. Seriously. Like Christmas and Thanksgiving wrapped in new baby smell. Love it. I want to make an air freshener. Call it Quarter-sawn White Oak. Yes.

Just enough flecks to give some character but not over power. Beautiful.

nice straight grain.

going nowhere.

Here's the "time out" chair at the lumber yard. In his defense... we were there for 2 hours... but sometimes you just gotta drop the hammer.

To The Beat

Finally started the install of the small cabinet job I have been working on. The painting process was a long one. By no means am I a painting pro. Painting is certainly an art form. So whenever I paint a project I follow directions from the Bible of periodicals, Fine Woodworking. Issue 177 Three Steps to a Flawless Painted Finish. Again, even if a piece is to be painted, build it as if you were finishing it clear. 2 coats of primer, 2 coats of paint, and 2 coats of clear, non-yellowing polyurethane, sanding with 220 grit between coats and 320 between the final poly coat. I sprayed this time using my HVLP system. Makes the painting time go quickly, but the down time waiting for things to dry is agony. My shop is small enough that I don't have a finishing room so when things are drying, there is no activity in order to not stir up dust. Bummer.

Mortised nickel butt hinges with ball tips from Van Dyke's Restorers, classy!

Wine storage drying.

Cabinet installation is always fun.....hmmmm.... Had to remove the chair rail gently. (It will be put back) Just easier than trying to install flush while its in place as my cabinets may be square,,, but walls are rarely. One of my doors got a little tight through the painting process. I always try to leave 1/16" - 3/32" for paint when I am fitting inset doors but this isn't paint. Think its just a little wood movement. I'll take it back to the shop for refitting before all is said and done.

Door on the right opens and closes fine, but the bottom left corner is a little too tight for my visual pleasure.

Installed the cove mouldings I made on the table saw. Just need to install the baseboards and base cap then fill and paint those as well. Shoe mouldings needed as well but these floors are to be refinished so we'll let the floor guys install those. Wine storage works well. Should have a classic, clean look when done. Knobs are black Victorian glass from Anthropologie. Love that shizz!

Cove mouldings need filling and painting.

Put some bottles in for fit.

Threw in a picture of Milo while we were hiking the Corridor Trail at Pilot Mountain yesterday.

That could not have been a better day. Love my boy!

F. Scott or J. Nicholson??? How about some Arts and Crafts Instead?

Every time the car pulls into the Grove Park Inn, and I walk through the 16 ft oak doors, then through the Great Hall past the two enormous fire places, and onto the terrace looking across the valley, over Asheville with the mountains as the back drop... I am consistently conflicted by my desire to put on a tux and party like Jay Gatsby or run like Shelly Duvall being chased by Jack the dull boy. An amazing place to say the least. Elise has an annual conference here at the end of October. Good timing. Amazing timing. Hard to beat Asheville and the Grove Park in late October. Her annual conference represents our annual trip to the Grove Park. One of the more intriguing facts about the GPI (that's what you call it if you're cool) is that it boasts the largest collection of Arts and Crafts style furniture in the world. That's right.... the world. While 90 percent of all the furniture is reproduction, there are some original gems lurking throughout the massive hotel. Here is a book I may have to purchase. So... conflicted again. While I have always wanted them to have a furniture museum to showcase their pieces, it is so nice to seek them out and then be able to touch table tops, open drawers, or even sit in chairs. I snapped a few photos of some pieces from the 1920's that could have easily come into contact with Fitz and Zelda, since they often stayed here (F. Scott spent 2 years writing), or any of the many, many, many historical figures who rested their weary heads after long nights of "mingling" on the Sunset Terrace. It is not that these pieces are beautiful examples of Arts and Crafts (some of them are)... its the idea that the drawer I'm pulling may have been pulled by Ike, or the chair I'm sitting in was Woodrow's favorite, or the table is where Edison ate. The Grove Park never fails.

Forgot to bring a good camera so the pictures are taken with a phone... my bad.

Hard to beat this view while eating breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

One of the massive fireplaces in the great hall. That man is 7'8"

Roycroft table outside our room in the Palm Court where F. Scott spent 2 years writing.

Roycroft insignia

Chair from the Palm Court

Bench...... also in the Palm court

Didn't get a picture of the massive Roycroft clock in the Great Hall. Here's the small one.

Lots and lots of reproductions. Lots... and a lot more... kind of everywhere.

I didn't get any pictures of the original oak doors or the original light fixtures from the Great Hall... damn.

I Love You Grove Park Inn.

New Stuff

Started a new project last week that I am super excited about. A dining table for the Stanley family who live in that dreamiest of towns... Chapel Hill, NC. So the Stanley's are my kind of family. 3 super cool kids, the hippest, play-set building mom ever, and lets just say... a dad that is building quite a collection of jeans. The Stanley's have been renovating a house for the last year or so and their knack for design is crazy good. We have been kicking ideas around for a year or so about beds and such when Chrissy (cool mom) shifted gears towards a dining table for the family. She wanted something clean, and modern, but durable, and a tad rustic. We looked at some examples of things she liked and came up with this design. Its going to be white oak, quarter and rift sawn,,, which for some reason I am obsessed with right now (never thought I would be crazy about white oak but I am.) Some changes have been made since this drawing was done, but when finished, I think we will have something that will not only last for decades, but adapt with any changing styles. The table is also gonna have two accompanying benches for full on family style dinners and Chrissy is gonna find some badass mid century chairs for the ends. Can't wait to see the finished table.

Undaunted

Well... I wouldn’t quite compare my trip to the Linville Gorge with one Mark Hekman to the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The similarities are sparse. A few days in the wilderness vs few years crossing the uncharted country (uncharted to europeans that is.) However, when we lost the trail within the first hour, I thought about Meriwether and William. If you aren’t familiar with the Linville Gorge, it is 12 miles of rugged wilderness carved by the Linville River over the last few million years. Grand Canyon of the East they call it. In fact, it is so rugged that the 12,000 acre wilderness is one of the only areas in the southern Appalachian Mountains’ long history of logging to be fully spared from a single cut. So trudging past virgin stands of hemlock that were possibly growing before europeans crossed the Atlantic was (not to be sappy but...) awe inspiring. Because it is so inaccessible, the amount of other people in the Gorge is, to say the least, small. Particularly when the temps aren't getting out of the 30's and snow is in the forecast for 2 days. So after Hekman (also known as “Heksquatch” or just “Squatch”) and I found the trail again, forded the river to get to the world’s greatest campsite ever, and got a fire rolling, it was nice to sit down and warm up with a little bourbon. A few days of hiking and camping in the Gorge did us right. Only one fatality... Mark’s finger was crushed by a log. Prognosis as of yesterday... broken in 4 places. He's one tough mutha. Never whined at all. But this just reinforces my theory that he is forever cursed for cyclocross. 4 years and running with a broken bone before the season starts. We were definitely glad to get warm hugs from the family when we got back but after excursions like this, as soon as I’m home, I start thinking about doing it again. Big thanks to J-Fed for the gear. It was a life saver!

Into the Wild...

Mark likes introspection. He took lots of time to reflect and meditate... not really.

Great spot to camp... only... its on the other side.

Fording the river. 39 degrees. almost sundown. slippery. fast current. miles from anywhere. oh yeah... that 30 foot water fall 50 meters down river... not dangerous (or stupid) at all...

home sweet home.

Almost as comfortable as home. Hard to beat this place. Well worth crossing the river.

Crossing again.

Tired...

tired too...

The gorge...

"Hoe-Down" from Aaron Coplan's "Rodeo" plays us out...

Old School

Whenever I have a request for something on the more traditional side of the spectrum I get a little excited. While I love modern aesthetics, thinking, and design, every now and again, building something a little old school is nice (whether it be simple or intricate.) Like if I was a musician and I wrote a song that sounded like the Stones or Dylan, or if I was an artist and I painted something like David Hockney or Roy Lichtenstien... it would be nothing groundbreaking or innovative (and I am certainly NOT saying anything I have ever done is either of these. to the contrary in fact) but fun and satisfying nonetheless.

So, I am not a huge fan of staining wood... I am also not one that criticizes it either. In fact I get annoyed when I hear people DIS (yeah I said it) using any kind of color or paint on wood. I think coloring wood gets an unwarranted bad rap from too many crappily (yeah, I said it too) done jobs. Simple fact, sometimes stains, if properly executed, look badass. And if you want something to look aged you have to go to the stain... or wait 100 years. (aged, not distressed... I REALLY am not a big fan of the distressed look on a new piece. really. it inevitably looks like someone beat the thing with a screw driver. Age is subtle. Distressed can turn out looking contrived)

So here is my "go to" finish when I am trying to get the 100 year look. It is a modified version from the book Great Wood Finishes that I started using years ago.

It serves so many purposes that all around, for practical purposes, it is the only "staining" process I use.

First, as always, start with a well prepared surface. sanded or scraped to a least 220 grit.

Then I spray the entire surface with deionized water to pre raise the grain. I do this because in the next step, I use a water based dye (not stain... there is a difference... a big one) to give the piece 1 solid tone. Because the grain is already raised, I can eliminate some sanding and not risk sanding through my dye coat. Let the water dry the scuff sand with 320 grit.

For the dye coat I use 10 drops of TransTint's honey amber dye in 1 pint of deionized water. Spray the entire surface and let dry for at least an hour. The honey amber will look super yellow and freakishly awesome. This finish works particularly well if you have multiple boards glued together with different tones or unmatched sapwood like cherry. But it is also laying down a layer of that in the end will give a piece unmatched depth and well... age.

After the dye is dry (nice) I spray a thin thin thin coat of de-waxed shellac over the surface then scuff sand to 320 grit. This just seals the dye.

SUPER YELLOW!!!

For the next step I used to use a dark reddish/brown naphtha based stain by Mowhawk that is no longer made. I couldn't find anything comparable so now I do this in two steps. First I lay down a dark brown stain and let it sit for 20 minutes before wiping off. I let it dry for 1 to two days, depending on the humidity and, again, sand to 320.

Once dry, I will lay down my first coat of finish. Here I am using a wiping varnish. I let that dry for at least 24 hours then sand.... yes 320 grit. I now use a red mahogany toner on top of the first finish coat. These multiple layers create ridiculous depth and color. After the toner drys (1 hour) I then apply 3 -4 more coats of finish. Finish is important for the look. If I want it to look aged, I will most always go with a muted finish. Wiping varnish, shellac and lacquer have always done me right. Wax it up and its done. 100 years in a few days. Little bits of the yellow base come through the stain/toner/finish and make it look crazy!

On a different note... I should probably clean the shop.

Audi 5000!!!