Reclaimed Barn Wood: Toddler Bed

Papa made Levi his first big-boy bed.

Toddler sized, but full of awesome style!

These boards were interior ones, from the stalls for the animals. 

It's from the last barn we had on our property, that sadly had to come down a few years ago.

He started in on it about a week and a half ago, planing down the wood and cutting the pieces he would need.

The mattress sits down in, leaving a little rail then about 4" so he won't fall out of bed.

The cut outs allow for the mattress to be even with the opening so he can get out of bed without help.

We tried to copy this one.  Except we didn't do the cutout star, and made a couple other minor changes.  And that's because Audrey will use the bed next and it wouldn't fit her bedroom theme.

We think it looks plenty like a cowboy, though, all rough and ready, with the hand-sawn details of the wood showing through, even though it was planed and lightly sanded afterward.

We love every worm hole, every knot, and ever little nuance in color and texture in this 120-year-old treasure that barn left us.  

The legs were made using one old hand-hewn beam, that was ripped into four posts, then run through the planer.

Made even more special because Papa lovingly made, then signed it.  :)

The natural color variations in the wood are left as is, and then only a polyurethane finish is added, to show it off.

I think it's pretty special, beautiful, actually, and I had promised to show you, so here it is, our second project.

(Here is the first project.)

We are pretty thrilled with it and we think Levi and his mom and dad will be, too!

I will let you know how it went, I'm delivering it to him, soon!  :)

Beauty in the Rough: Reclaimed Barnwood

This was the old barn...it had to go because it became very dangerous.  


It was very sad to us, but we saved the wood siding and a few of the beautiful beams that were hand-hewn--before we pulled it down.


But now, we can see it repurposed, reused!  

The guys are working behind the new barn we put up to take the place of the old one.  None of the character, but it's bigger, has power, and the stuff in it sure stays much more dry!  :0)





Recently, I've been sifting through my photo files and I've found several stories I never told you.


And this is one of them.


Taking this big pile of old barnwood siding and making it into usable wood for projects for us is my son and husband tackled one really, really, really hot summer afternoon.  (In fact, it was so hot, when I took the camera outside from the central air in the house, the lens immediately fogged over and I had to wait several minutes to warm it up!)


He'd bought a new planer and wanted to try it out.  

He set up his work area and got busy.


I had to watch!

I loved watching the wood smooth out and clean up.

Even Luke got in on the action!

Isn't it beautiful!!?  


So much potential!

The top layers of the wood are very dry, and very splintery, it's difficult to use that way.  


Getting at the beauty underneath the dried out surface is where we want to go.


I love the smell of the fresh layer of wood coming out.

The places where the animals chewed up or rubbed are especially wonderful to me.  The wormholes, the knots, all of the marks are beautiful!  


The piece above here is obviously from a stall inside the barn, and is in very good shape for the barn being at least 115.  I love that.

I have uses in mind for this wood, and can't wait until we can see some of it put to use.  


We've done one project so far, just a small one; a picture rail.  

I can see a beautiful farmhouse kitchen table out of this.  I've found some projects online.  


(Pinterest is a wonderful place for keeping track of project like this--so you can find them when you need them; have you discovered this crack cocaine of the internet?!  WOW!)

Below is the first project we want to do:

Toddler bed 

(For Levi when he graduates from his crib!)

Source:  Amazon.com

And....here are the tables I'm looking at.  

Simple and yet beautiful, and even more special because it would have come from our old barns.

Source:  ETSY

 Source:  ETSY

Harvest Table:  source "Soule Mama"

These are such exciting possibilities!!

I hope to soon be able to show you the results of our work...which table would you choose?

Reclaimed Barn Wood: First Project--Picture Rail

The first board put through the planer from the old barn has turned out to be quite useful, made into a picture rail/shelf for our family room at the back of the house, which is an addition we put onto our home thirteen years ago.  




This room, by necessity,  has none of the character the older rooms in the farmhouse have...it's quite plain, really, with a tall, peaked ceiling, an oak floor and a view of the back yard and the farm field behind it being the only features that are an asset.  




There are three major doorways and our pets spend most of their time here--it's the room right off our back entry.  I wanted to "make it fit" with the farmhouse theme I have in the rest of the house, but practical uses for the room have prevented that.  




Which is fine with me, my husband is such a hard worker, he needs a room that's "all his"...and I'm only too happy to make it that way.

See all the old knots and worm holes?  Too bad the photo frames cover all that up!  I also like how the weathered edges of the barn wood are left on each of the outer edges, for a "finished" look.

Being that it's a room that I let the men dictate in furnishings:  it's leather couches, with deer mounts on the wall as well as a few fish and up until Mark moved out, there were turkey mounts, too!

Not long ago, I decided it was past time I have some of our photography displayed in our home, the only problem is the old parts of the house have SO LITTLE wall space that is uninterrupted by windows, doors, or woodwork.  The family room was the only space that would work for a large display.

This rail--made fresh on Memorial day!-- holds seven matching frames that each hold three 8 x 10's that I bought using my 30% off coupons at Kohl's, and since they were also on sale, the frames came in at under $10 each.  


The only problem is, they had no hangers and there was no way to add them!  I like this method of display, though because it makes photos easy to change out and move around, I have plenty more of 8 x 10" prints.


Luke is SO PROUD of the photos he took that are displayed here, and the memories we've got of taking those photos together.


I have to say, I just love it.


I wanted to be sure to show you, too, and I can't wait to see what our next project becomes.

Reclaimed Barn Wood

Old hand-hewn beams.

We saved some of the old wood from our old barns that once sat on the property--but were beyond repair.

The old barn when it was standing.  I miss it!  It just got too dangerous.


We didn't know why, but it didn't seem right to throw good boards or beams into a fire if they were intact.  


When we were doing the "de-constructing", it sure seemed easier to burn it all than to sort it and make a pile. 

We saved interior and exterior siding, and some of the hand-hewn squared barn beams with the hand-hewn notches and pegs.

The other day, my husband got some of the exterior siding boards that were once the barn siding out of the pile they've been sitting in for years, and played around with his brand-new planer and the wood came out as smooth as a baby's butt, however...

The smoothed wood still shows the worm holes, knot holes, and nail holes from the old square topped nails that were removed.  That is the part I absolutely LOVE.

The above photo shows the old board on the bottom, the top half shows one that was put through the planer.

It's so exciting, I'm dreaming up projects to make out of them.  We have probably fifty. They look to be about a foot wide and twelve feet long.  Some of the boards are from interior stalls from the barn, and show places that the animals had rubbed or chewed, smoothed by years of wear, I especially love those pieces.  

It's amazing to think these boards were cut and sawed into usable lumber in the late 1800's, stayed on the barn and served their purpose, and have sat patiently waiting.  Now we are reworking them in this century to be something new, and hopefully have something heirloom quality, to last into yet another century. 

I think it would be fitting to design a farmhouse table out of at least some of them.  We are going to simply finish, and add no stain because we love how the wood looks when it comes out of the planer.

Have you ever made anything or seen nice pieces made out of old barn siding?  

Look at what I just found in this month's issue of CL magazine!