How we built the salvaged acacia arbor from an old barn

Last year, after the acacia, we received a message from a reader telling how he salvaged acacia wood from an old barn and used it to build a gazebo. He was impressed by the strength and hardness of the wood. The way he told his story, his enthusiasm and his desire to share his experience with someone who has the same passion for wood impressed me and that's how we got to know each other (unfortunately only virtually). Although it may seem like a simple story about building a gazebo using old wood, I think it is more than that. It is a story about passion, about reclaimed wood, about memories transferred to a new gazebo, about dreams, plans and wishes, and last but not least, about family. It gives me pleasure to tell you this story, occasionally in the words of the 'little one'.

This is Claudiu Gârceavă, who makes a good living by making furniture out of melamine chipboard, but dreams of a workshop where he can work with solid wood. Last fall, last year, he demolished an old shed - a barn or porumbar, as we call it in the South - and decided to salvage the old acacia posts. The porumbar was built in 1949 to hold not only corn, but also firewood and the cane used to make wine barrels.

Some of the wood had been in the ground, the marks left by damp, but especially by insects, being very visible after the bark was removed. Yet the wood was just as hard and strong.

Each acacia pole was carefully cleaned with a hatchet and a nail file, the old nails were removed and it was prepared for future construction.

"At the gazebo we used recovered wood The horizontal bars linking the poles at the top, the horizontal T-shaped beams between each pair of poles at the bottom and the center pole. The gazebo has a diameter of 5 m in the area of the pillars and 6.5 m in the area of the roof (seen from above), and is 8-sided (octagonal)".

Because the salvaged wood was not enough, he had to buy another 4 m of timber, which he circular cut and made into rafters. After he made the structure, he sprayed it all with a sealing oil, left it in the sun for 2 days to dry, then applied a rosewood-colored varnish. In the meantime, winter came, so he had to stop. This gave the wood time to 'settle' over the winter.

"This year, as soon as the heat turned up, I started again. I put the shingles on the roof on all 8 sides, fastened in holdouts, 900 holdouts in 3 days. I then covered it with thin bituminous membrane, overlapped at the ends 10 cm and fastened from place to place in long staples. In a day it was ready, but the sun was baking me, by the end of the day we were both black, me and the membrane."

The next few days the weather was nice, so he could lay the bituminous shingle in peace. It took 4 days and ... 1750 nails. On the edges he put all the shingles, cut into a drop shape, and glued it down with mastic.

With the roof ready he allowed it to rest for 2 weeks, then moved on to the bottom of the gazebo. Still from 280 x 50 mm and 4 m long planks, he made the horizontal poles and laid them over the planking. Everything had to be prepared for all the fastening to the acacia poles, after which holdouts were used. The acacia turned out to be so hard that nothing would get through, and smoke came out of the drill when drilling.

The pole was wrapped in string to "finish" the rather rough surface of the acacia. He didn't want to straighten it so as not to thin it by even 1 mm. "For one and a half meter of pole I needed 50 (fifty) meters of string. 🙂 I couldn't believe it!"

Also on the center pillar, 5 feet off the ground, he put four anchor sites for 250 pounds each for hammocks. "After lunch, you can relax in a hammock when it's a torrential downpour of bubbling rapids outside."

Inside he put 2 benches he bought, but adapted for the gazebo and a 3rd one, made of an old plank eaten by curries. "I hollowed it out until I found good wood, let it dry, then I put some varnish on it and fixed it to 2 acacia logs that look like ceramic. It is a very comfortable bench."

I was telling you at the beginning about Caludiu's enthusiasm. I thought long and hard about how I could say what was to come, but no way could capture Claudiu's excitement, joy of accomplishment and love of wood. So I'll let him tell you again.

"What I wanted to tell you is that every nail, every shingle, and every wood cutting, chertizing and finishing was done by me and me alone. It was and will remain my first solid wood project. Sometimes I feel I love wood more than people. You know, I'm a pastry confectioner by trade (for real 🙂 🙂 I've been making melamine-wood furniture since 2000, before that I made pastries. My dream is to set up a workshop where I work with solid wood, and I'm striving to fulfill my dream, together with my family. I have a daughter, a pupil at Tonita, and a 5 year old son, who scares me with his tenacity and patience. And of course my wife, who understands and loves us all."

As well as the satisfaction of having done everything himself, Claudiu is also proud of the fact that he did it all by hand. As tools he used a foxtail saw (the longest), a drill, a flex, a hammer, an axe, a hatchet, a vise and a scissors. "The gazebo is 8-sided - octagonal - and the metal piece at the top, where the rafters and the center pole attach, I made from a piece of 3mm sheet metal. I drew the shape, cut it out with the thin diamond disk flex, drilled holes in it, and then bent it by hand in vice and hammer, on the fine grooves I made with the flex (the sheet was quite thick). This piece basically supports the roof and connects the rafters to the central acacia pillar, and is fastened to it with a hex-headed holdout screw, 20 cm long and 1 cm thick. You don't know what satisfaction it gave me when I climbed it and stood on the top".

Now the gazebo is ready, so everyone can enjoy it in peace. Maybe except Claudiu. Not that he wouldn't enjoy it, but I don't think he does it in peace because he already has a lot of other projects on his mind and he's itching to get started. 🙂

Photos in the article are the property of Claudiu Gârceavă