Project Five: Blue-Stain, Beetle-Kill Peeled Log Railing

Remember the couple who decided to go with oak instead of blue-stain pine for their stairs and floors?

Well, the same couple did want to use beetle-kill wood for the handrail and bannister on their stairs. In fact, they wanted the whole thing built out of peeled beetle-kill logs, to add a rustic flair to their new house.

So we hand-peeled the logs with a drawknife and gave everything time to dry out. Then we carefully carved pegs and cut holes in order to fit everything together mortis-and-tenon style.

The handrail turned out to be the hardest part:  we couldn’t find one log long enough to span the entire wall. (To meet Lake County’s building codes, handrails can’t have breaks in them.) So we found 2 logs the same size and joined them using a sturdy peg. Then we mounted the whole thing to the wall with metal hardware that supported the joint.

Project Four: White Oak Floors

The fourth couple we worked with were building an addition onto their 19th century house.

They had put concrete floors on the ground level, but were looking at wood as an option for the stairs and the upper floor.

At first, they thought they might like to put in blue-stain, beetle-kill floors. But they have a dog, and they were worried that the dog might scratch the floors. (Pine is a softer wood.)

So we took samples of different flooring (oak, pine, bamboo, etc.) and dropped rocks on them. White oak was the winner.

To be sure, the wood isn’t sustainably harvested or culled from a standing dead tree. But a solid oak floor will last a lot longer than other flooring options–carpet or linoleum, for example.

Wood floors can be refinished for years and years–and they generally look better, not worse, with age.

Ours our 130 years old and still going strong.