Tag: Upcycle
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Door Reconceived for Icehouse Bathroom
It’s time for an overdue chronicle of the antique door we adapted and upcycled for the icehouse bathroom. From concept through re-fabrication and installation, this project demanded the focus, precision, and creativity of Peter Vaiciulis. The photograph of the bottom of this post offers testament to his impressive execution. Although I prioritized upcycling and adaptive…
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Pickets & Kindling
While Glen has been enjoying some much deserved R&R, Tony has been finalizing preparations for the privacy enclosure behind the carriage barn. Woodworking, especially repurposing rough or recycled material into finish grade lumber, has proven to be a well matched and rewarding undertaking for Tony over the last year and a half. Again and again…
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Stumping
As political pundits’ newscycle turns to election stumping, our workcycle turns to ash stumping. The inevitable next step in our current homegrown lumber undertaking is to transform the stumps (leftover from five removed ash trees) into mulch and then prepare the ground for grass seeding in the spring. After felling five ash trees in the…
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Stone Wall Retrospective
Fifteen years ago, on November 5, 2008 we were many months deep into building/rebuilding the stone walls around Rosslyn’s deck. The original estimate had morphed from weeks to months. As I recall, five weeks had stretched into five months by this stage. I’ll dig into my notes to verify, but for the sake of this…
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Sidewalk Upgrade Begins
Hurrah! I’m super pleased to showcase the swift progress that the Town of Essex has made so far with the sidewalk upgrade. A couple of weeks ago I met with Town of Essex Supervisor, Ken Hughes, and Town of Essex Highway Superintendent, Bradley French, to review plans for replacing the derelict (and potentially dangerous) section…
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Garapa Door
For such a small scope of work, the icehouse rehabilitation has included some remarkably creative one-offs. The garapa door is one such project: a challenging initiative to upcycle reclaimed garapa decking from Rosslyn’s house deck into a minimalist mechanical room door perfectly camouflaged into tbe bathroom walls. Today I can report that it’s been a…
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Garapa Paneled Bathroom, Pt. 2
Just over a week ago I posted a prologue to today’s garapa paneled bathroom update. I apologize if it felt a little half baked. For just a little longer, I’ll keep you in suspense before I share photos of the now completed garapa installation. Remember, anticipation is half the pleasure! (Source: Garapa Paneled Bathroom, Pt.…
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Garapa Paneled Bathroom, Pt. 1
Eureka! After many months of brainstorming, experimentation, painstakingly protracted preparation, troubleshooting, oiling, and meticulous installation, the garapa paneling in Rosslyn’s icehouse bathroom is complete. What a remarkable journey it’s been, and the final results are breathtaking. Garapa Backstory Our garapa backstory has its beginning waaayyy back when we built the original garapa deck on the…
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Field Finishing Woodwork
Today it’s commonplace in carpentry and construction to build with materials that are factory finished. In other words, raw materials (flooring, trim lumber, etc.) are delivered to a job site, pre-dimensioned, pre-surfaced, and ready for installation. While there are times (ie. custom windows and doors) that we rely upon the efficiency of offsite fabrication and…
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Re-tuning Columns
Rosslyn Redux regulars will be familiar with this multimodal “singalong’s” refrain celebrating the merits of upcycling and repurposing, architectural salvage and adaptive reuse. Well today we hum a new verse about re-tuning columns… In the snapshot above, Peter is trimming the top off one of two Greek revival columns deconstructed and salvaged back in 2006…
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Searching for Poetry
Searching for poetry, questing for questions that need no answers to matter and guide and enrich. This might be my epitaph. Some day. But not yet. I hope. Today, the vernal equinox, I awoke at 4:00 AM, eager to start cooking a wild boar roast I had thawed. Actually it wasn’t the roast that caffeinated…
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Leftovers & Surplus Building Materials
Exciting icehouse rehab progress in recent days, so I’m due for an exciting update or two. But first I need to whittle down the backlog of overdue posts, especially some of those dealing with how we’re transforming some of our surplus building materials into exciting design elements in the reimagined icehouse. I can anticipate your…