Trim from Reclaimed Lumber

While some of our clients like us to come in to complete a whole project all at once, others like to pick away at little projects on their property's buildings over time. In this case, some good friends of ours, who are also clients, have a large barn with a studio, gallery and residence above, a farmhouse and an above garage apartment all on several acres. An estate like that always has some small project going on, so if we get slow one week or need to fill in a few days, we pop over and take care of the next thing on the list.

The last several things on the list have been: turning old v-match pine into paint-grade trim stock and then building window and door casings out of it. The v-match came from last year's remodel of the gallery.

Here is a photo of the gallery during remodeling. Much of the old gallery was covered in very campy 1x8 v-match pine. With all that ripped out, we now had all kinds of stock to make trim out of, but it ALL has to be denailed, sorted, ripped down to size and then sanded or planed to make it ready for paint. When all that is done it looks something like this:

Windows in the farmhouse laundry room with new custom extension jambs and casings.



The main thing to keep in mind when using old pine for painted trim is to use a spot primer such as Zinsser's BIN or Kilz to make sure the knots don't pop through the finish paint. Or just forget the paint and let wood be wood; it has character.


Closeup of reclaimed pine casing and sill.


Door casing of reclaimed pine.

This is the same front door in the first photo, now installed, painted and trimmed out.


Stay tuned, next post will be about a porch restoration (or two).