New" house made of wood over 300 years old

I have written quite a lot about recovered woodbut I still believe that using wood salvaged from old, abandoned and demolished buildings or wood salvaged from other such sources is a sensible way to use wood. And as for objects or buildings in which such wood has been used, they acquire a patina of time, they are filled with stories and history and become much more valuable.

There are many who think this way about reclaimed wood. Take Julie and Jimmy Cash, a couple from Birmingham, Alabama, USA. They have always been in love with the mountains, the woods and the old houses and cabins they came across on their walks. When they decided to build their own vacation home, they chose Georgia's Lookout Mountains as the site, and their greatest wish was to make it look like the old cabins they admired so much. They even said that if they couldn't find old wood for the house they'd rather not do it.

The help came from a local company whose business was salvaging wood from old mills, tobacco drying barns and other derelict buildings that were continually deteriorating. From this firm, Julie and Jimmy got almost all the wood they used to build their house, which is about 80% of all the wood they used.

They used pine, cedar and hemlock wood, over 300 years old, salvaged from barns in Tennessee and Virginia and from a mill in South Carolina. Julie says the wood is steeped in history, has its own story, and every time she looks at it, she seems to see something else. On the wood used to build the patio posts, you can still see the nail holes made in the past. Once, these posts were used to dry tobacco leaves.

In the kitchen it's not just the beams and floor that are old. In the construction of the cupboards and the central table, although they are made at the same time as the house, reclaimed wood from old barns was used. The floor is made from beams salvaged from a 300-year-old mill.

There is a dining area in the house, where an old bench, Indian rug and German chandelier are reminiscent of old farmhouses. The house also has a seating area where, in addition to an old coffee table and 2 armchairs, there is a bookcase, basically book poles made from the reclaimed poles from the tobacco barn. At the bottom is a reproduction of the "Z" design characteristic of peasant house doors.

Access to the first floor is via a rustic staircase made of poplar logs. The staircase is finished in washed white-grey, and decorated with a lantern and posters Julie found in a Birmingham antique shop.

Upstairs are the master and guest bedrooms. The master bedroom has perhaps the only new piece of furniture in the entire house, as they were unable to find an old piece as they would have liked. But the piece de resistance in the bedroom is Jimmy's great-great-great-grandfather's chest, the chest that accompanied him in the Civil War.

The guest bedroom is also decorated as rustically as possible. The wood of the walls, old reclaimed wood with all the marks of time on it, is exposed, the beds have slats and slats made from old poplar trunks, and the windows are framed in wooden frames. Light is provided by a bulb hung above the beds by a nail hammered into the wood.

The two say they have a great appreciation for old wood that has lived other lives before coming to them. And it will most likely live on after they are gone. Which is why they see themselves as merely the temporary caretakers of the wood in their home.

(source: countryliving.com)