From The Blog

Welcome back to the Black Canyon Builders blog. We like to use timbers asaccent pieces in a traditionally framed custom home to get somewhat of atimber frame or post and beam look. When we were dismantling the Day Househere in Durango, Co. we uncovered numerous large planks and timbers thatformed the frame of the original garage that was built back in the 1920’s.We had struck gold in terms of nice old timbers that we knew we’d be ableto incorporate into the remodel as accent timber pieces but didn’t knowwhere at that time. Well now that we’ve just about finished most of theframing we found our first place to use these reclaimed timbers to looklike a post and beam or timber frame that has been there since it was builtin the late 1880’s. The owner, Mark Williamson, wanted to have a faux ridge beam installed onthe third floor ceiling so we planned out how to mill up some of the largerreclaimed timbers. The timbers started out pretty dirty and beat-up as youcan see in the pictures but the end result made the owner very happy. Wemade four collar ties for the vaulted ceiling on the third floor, two beamsfor the ridge beam, and a few other timbers to wrap an LVL in the roof.

I planed the timbers first and then used a wheel sander to raise thegrain.

Then I torched the wood to give it some color and wheel sanded itagain to leave just enough browning to give it some character.

Then I put one coat of clear poly on it.

At this point I used a few different tools to”distress” the wood. These included a small nail-set, a heavy chain, anaxe, and a coopers knife.

Next I used ebony stain wiped quickly over the distressed marks that penetrated the wood and wiped away the excess with a dry rag. The poly prevents the face of the timbers from taking in much ofthe stain. It basically soaks into the distressed marks only.

After that I wiped on a thick brown-colored gel-like stain and came back quickly with a thinner-soaked rag and evenly spread out this coat to give it a consistent finish.

Once this dried I applied a few coats of Tung Oil Varnish to finish it off.

The results were amazing and they look like very old, but clean timbersthat have been there a long time. We have more timbers from the garage thatwe’re going to mill into decorative ceiling beams for the living room andkitchen so I’ll post more on that when we get to it. Once we install thesetimbers in the ceiling I’ll post more photos then. This was a fun projectand Marks very satisfied with the look of the reclaimed timbers. Its goingto look somewhat like a timber frame and will add a lot of depth andcharacter to the large room up there on the third floor. If you have some of your own ideas on how to distress wood or have done ityourself, it would be great to hear about it from you and maybe see some photos too. Thanks for stopping by. We’ll see you next time.