As you may have already read from our farm journals, we have been scavengers and get such a kick out of recycling something or bringing life back into what others think is trash.  Between our own falling barn and some others that have fallen in the area, we have several large stacks of sorted, cleaned, and de-nailed barnwood.   It's mixed Poplar, aged Oak, Chestnut and Maple.  

With some lessons and hands on help, Sharon's Dad guided us in putting together our first bathroom vanity using barnwood.    It takes a bit more time preparing the wood and often has problems with bows and size variations in comparison to new wood.   But it has so much more character, costs almost nothing except time, and we recycled something old and made it new again. 

The bath area in the bedroom we call the Tree House was a bit more of a challenge.  Our master cabinet maker had long gone and we had obstacles like a low ceiling, corner vanity and unsquare old section of the house wall to work with.   It took Sharon and I about a day, but we eventually figured it out.  In fact, we got so jazzed about cabinet making, we decided then that we would attempt the kitchen ourselves.  We were considering saving up and hiring this part of the renovation out since it involved so much detail.   But not anymore!

Sharon's Dad and brother came down for a week sometime later and before we knew it the base kitchen cabinet frames where built, leveled and ready for drawers and doors. 


They stayed long enough to help get the upper cabinet frames built and hung on the wall.  Then Sharon and I went through the barnwood stacks and hand picked each door and drawer.  We cleaned each piece, joined and routered the edges, added door pulls and hinges.   We often found ourselves working way past our usual bed time since it became addictive and so hard to stop. 

A month or so before we began the cabinets project, I found some culled Maple and Oak lumber at one of our local mills. I couldn't believe how willing they were to have it gone and how nicely it stacked in our neighbors greenhouse when I got it home. When we were trying to decide about how/what we were going to do about counter tops, the search was over the minute I planed my first piece of Maple lumber. We left the Oak in the greenhouse to continue curing and took the Maple out to make the counter tops. Maple has now become my second favorite variety of wood with all of its unique patterns and colors. We measured, cut, glued and clamped the tops together and set them proudly on top of the cabinets. Was a bit nervous of cutting the hole for the sink but closed my eyes (ha ha) and did the operation.

The icing on the cake was the polyurethane. It made it all come alive. I believe the house is probably being held together with Poly now. The old barnwood soaks it in quite a bit, so it took two and three coats in many places.

Once we had all the plumbing hooked up, I couldn't get Sharon away from her cabinets and sink. I would find her there washing the same dish over and over just looking out her kitchen window with the biggest smile.