Turning wine into windows. Klaas Armster inspects the reclaimed wine tank Redwood at Strout Millwork that is being prepared for the Passive House windows by Menck.
brooklyn
What goes with wood? Paint colors and reclaimed.
Annie Coggan, an interior designer (Coggan and Crawford), and professor at local Pratt Institute, works with a selected range of neutral colors against the skip planed antique Pine in the attic space. With the floors chosen or installed, paint colors came into play. While there are no hard and fast rules on color and reclaimed woods, Annie inter-changed a restrained (passive?) palette of neutral colors for each room, helping to reflect or throw more light around the space, create mood, define volume and frame the floors “…the woods are the diva”, she says.
Pulling Up The Handrail
The stair rail was an original detail of the house that remained, with floors, walls and other interior work replaced over the eras. But an old hand rail may be the closest we’ll get to shaking hands with every former resident of the house. A rebuilt staircase by Blueline Construction will use rustic Pine treads and risers, reclaimed Oak and Hickory spindles.
Shades of Reclaimed Brown
Reclaimed wood ages brown – at least when it’s not daily exposed to light. Outside of time, other factors result in a wide range of brown – wood species, age of boards, original saw blade orientation, use and it’s exposure to a mix of man made influences – from tobacco smoke, pickle juice and other food grade fluids. All of the browns in their ‘found’ condition evoke a warm natural quality, but with individual personality. The woods below are a collection of antique grade Spruce/Fir, Hemlock, White Pine and potentially other species – sourced from barns, residential buildings, mushroom drying boards and Worcestershire Sauce tanks. The design possibilities within the family of natural browns are limitless.
How to Install a Reclaimed Oak floor
Bernard Gallagher and Frank Teo installing reclaimed Oak flooring at Brooklyn passive house. 3-5″ old growth woods “…grained and hued like pale Oak” (Joyce) from 19th c. farm structures in the Northeast. This is the first installation of reclaimed flooring at the house – to be followed by 12″ skip planed antique Eastern White Pine softwoods on the top floor.
Cellar floor delivered
While most of the house will be reclaimed wood flooring, the cellar is a bed of concrete with an R-value closer to a screen door than foil faced Polyisocyanurate. The cellar is below the Passive House insulating barrier, which starts just above, on the ceiling.
Squibb history: The first motor driven mobile mixer entered the construction scene in 1916 – a small but consequential development of the concrete jungle. It was invented by Stephen Stepanian – and the modern mixer doesn’t appear to have changed much from his original vision. It replaced the horse-pulled mixer that worked with wooden paddles to turn the mix. It was slow work until machines able to haul tons of wet concrete were developed, especially in the building boom after WWII. Photo: Blueline Construction staff transport wheel barrow loads of the mix to the opening of the cellar.
