Rosslyn Redux

Tag: Cabinetry

  • Cabinetry in Icehouse Loft

    Cabinetry in Icehouse Loft

    For such a nanoscopic space, it’s a little uncanny how much complex finish carpentry and how much cabinetry have been part of this final stretch in the icehouse rehab. Actually… it’s precisely *BECAUSE* of the nanoscopic proportions that we’ve emphasized builtins and detailed finish work. And degree-by-degree we’re measuring progress toward completion. Even the cabinetry in icehouse loft is beginning to take shape.

    An endoskeleton for the soon-to-be loft shelving has begun to take shape. Shop-built carcasses fabricated by Bernie Liberty have been delivered and installation has begun. Lining the north and south knee walls, these reading repositories will soon be lined with bound words… (Source: Loft Shelving)

    Cabinetry in Icehouse Loft (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
    Cabinetry in Icehouse Loft (Photo: R.P. Murphy)

    I accompanied my April 25, 2023 update with a haiku — a loft shelving haiku, of course, — brimming with bookish confidence. Bookshelf confidence, at least. I acknowledged my exuberance at the time.

    A little forward leaning, I suppose. Aspirational. Projecting, courtesy of my imagination, a few weeks forward… (Source: Loft Shelving)

    A few weeks forward?!?!

    “Piece of pie,” the carpenter responded in January when we discussed the icehouse loft cabinetry. He estimated “a couple of weeks” to fabricate and install the cabinets. My optimistic update (referenced above) was posted three months later when some carcasses had been delivered, and the first units were installed. Hhhmmm… Almost two months after that the face frame is joining the ensemble. Hurrah!

    Cabinetry in Icehouse Loft (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
    Cabinetry in Icehouse Loft (Photo: R.P. Murphy)

    I frequently remind Carley that anticipation is half the pleasure. She remains unconvinced, but lately I’ve been reminding myself that this isn’t just a patience mantra. There’s more than a kernel of truth in it. An aphoristic cousin to “distance makes the heart grow fonder”, perhaps?

    However we account for it, I’m relieved and more than a little thrilled to see my loft cabinetry coming together. Since this space will be my study, the lofty locus of my productivity, I have a vested interest in the timely and reliable execution of this builtin storage. A tidy workspace is a productive workspace! Heck, I’m overflowing with aphorisms today. And even an autogamous poem…

    Study & Studio Haiku

    Lo lofty locus,
    penning’s, typing’s, doodling’s
    manufactory.

    Speaking of anticipation, years of hope and expectation have fertilized the vision for my study-studio in the icehouse loft. A picture perfect panacea! And yet, I recognize the zealous overreach, understand that degrees of recalibration may be necessary. Soon.

    Loft Cabinetry

    With luck I’ll follow this post soon with a celebratory bookend to this project. Perhaps “a couple of weeks” will have extended into a couple of seasons, but I’ll be able to migrate my books and files and fountain pens and miscellaneous mementos into their new shelves and cabinets. I’ll be able to position my desk beneath the east side gable window and occupy the chair with a view for productive mornings in my loft. Ah, Elysium.

    My mind meanders, doubling back on an exchange with Pam this past winter.

    Geo: Builtins will combine open shelving (note dimension changes per our meeting) and cabinet doors (paint grade shaker style with flat panel and no panel molding) concealing deep cabinet storage. Please review plans and help me determine whether or not we can/should fabricate in-house or subcontract to a cabinetry shop. (Note: I’m hoping to evaluate whether or not our team is well suited to undertaking this mostly shop-work carpentry, and whether or not it is the most pragmatic use of our resources.

    Pam: Builtins have been snapped out. I have a cabinet maker stopping in tomorrow to see the scope of work and discuss his availability.

    Willing forward motion — cabinetry installation, final painting, hardware, and… migrating from the house to the icehouse — in the coming days.

  • Coffee Bar Cabinetry Tweaks

    Coffee Bar Cabinetry Tweaks

    As we hurdle toward the homestretch on the icehouse rehab I find myself re-visiting and fine-tuning finish details to accommodate subtle discrepancies between plans and field conditions. Or sometimes it’s just a matter of little tweaks that pop up as envisioned and imagined circumstances metamorphose into reality. Today I’ve sketched a new iteration, a little bit of experimentation with the built-in coffee bar cabinetry.

    Details, details, details… Making micro adjustments up until the last moment. But it’s almost time to fabricate the coffee bar built-ins, so it’s the last chance for fine tuning!

    Coffee Bar Cabinetry, As Drawn (Source: Tiho Dimitrov)

    I’ve cropped the detail above from Tiho’s plans so you can identify the coffee bar cabinetry near the bottom middle. The opportunity and challenge with custom carpentry/cabinetry is to tailor the design precisely to the larger aesthetic context and the specific needs. Integration, cohesion, and function in perfect harmony! It’s all in the details, and it’s starting to feel pretty close.

    Coffee Bar Cabinetry, Fine Tuning… (Source: Geo Davis)

    My quick field sketch above alters the right niche from 2 to 3 shelves, and the left niche gets enclosed with a cabinet door similar to the one beneath the bar sink. And under the countertop, I am reconfiguring the spaces spacing to accommodate a small bar fridge. Under the counter, I’m reconfiguring spacing to accommodate a small bar fridge instead of microwave. We are relocating an historic cherry China cabinet from the house into the icehouse, and it will be located exactly where the fridge was originally intended yo be. This small change simplifies design and streamlines space flow, so it’s a win-win-win. Or so it seems for now. I’ll take another swipe at it tomorrow and make a final decision.

  • Searching for Poetry

    Searching for Poetry

    Searching for Poetry Amidst Architectural Salvage (Photo: Geo Davis)
    Searching for Poetry Amidst Architectural Salvage (Photo: Geo Davis)

    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 me prior to my first cuppa MUD\WTR, that zero-to-sixtied my green gray matter within seconds.

    If the human brain were a computer, it would be the greenest computer on Earth.

    The basis for the brain’s greenness is its ultra-high computational efficiency; that is, it can generate a tremendous amount of computational output for the very little power it draws. (Source: Is the human brain a biological computer? | Princeton University Press)

    You with me? Caveat emptor: it’s going to be that kind of post!

    It wasn’t anticipation of the pulled wild boar that I enjoyed for lunch (and soon will enjoy for dinner) that prevented me from falling back asleep. (I love variety, but if it ain’t broke… And if you’ve cooked 5.4lbs of wild boar shoulder, then share, eat, share, eat, share,…)

    It was one of those light-switch-on awakenings. Sound asleep one moment, wide awake the next. 100% alert, cylinders thumping away, and focus dialed in. Monday morning’s are often like that for me. And with an ambitious punch list for the icehouse rehab, I needed to hit the ground running. Or jumpstart the week by roasting a wild boar shoulder?

    Both.

    But, after talking through exterior trim and clapboard siding with two contractors, explaining how to prune watersprouts (aka “growth shoots) out of our mature American Linden to another contractor, and various other midmorning miscellanea, I headed into the carriage barn for some, ahem, research.

    I’m still sorting through architectural salvage and surplus building materials, endeavoring to make final decisions for the icehouse. Woulda-coulda-shoulda tackled this many months ago, and I tried, but the process continues to evolve. In some cases, it’s continues to elude me. So my endeavor continues.

    Today I ruled out a couple of ideas I’ve been developing, visions for upcycling deconstructed cabinetry from Sherwood Inn days. The visions have faded, but all is not lost. In the shadowy space they’ve left behind, I stumbled upon something else.

    A poem.

    Searching for Poetry Amidst Architectural Salvage (Photo: Geo Davis)
    Searching for Poetry Amidst Architectural Salvage (Photo: Geo Davis)

    Searching for Poetry

    Wabi-sabi wandering,
wabi-sabi wondering —
reimagining relics,
architectural salvage,
weather worn detritus,
offcuts, rusty remainders,
time textured tatters,
pre-mosaic fragments,
and dust mote mirages —
so much pulling apart,
so much pushing aside,
searching for poetry.

    Today I concluded that the vision I’d been pursuing  — a vision of upcycling deconstructed cabinetry and paneling from the Sherwood Inn’s colonial taproom  — had been little more than mirage. However as this mirage vanished, I happened upon a glimmer of clarity, fleeting but encouraging, around an even bigger mystery that I’ve been chasing. Also mirage-like, also elusive, also a problem that persistence might hopefully tame, also a quest for questions that illuminate and instruct even when their answers evanesce.

    This glimmer of clarity (try to imagine a spark that just might benefit from attention, a flickering flame that invites kindling with promises of a roaring bonfire) materialized briefly where moments before a mirage had danced and vanished. And what did I see? Companionship. Kinship. Similarity. Affinity. Between poetry and architectural rehabilitation and adaptive reuse. A glimmer and gone. I exaggerate, but the picture is at once protean, subtle, and elusive.

    Nevertheless, I will continue to strive, risk, and experiment. I will continue essaying to illustrate the intimate overlap between poetry and construction — especially between composing lyric essay and adaptive reuse of existing buildings and building materials — until my wandering and wondering renders an oasis. Or admits a mirage.

  • Icehouse Loft Flooring Update

    Icehouse Loft Flooring Update

    Much of the current and upcoming stage in Rosslyn’s icehouse rehab involves covering, cladding, and closing in: clapboard siding, T&G nickel gap paneling, upcycled garapa paneling, and plenty of hardwood flooring. Today I’d like to get you up-to-date on the loft flooring.

    Loft Flooring Update (R.P. Murphy)
    Loft Flooring Update (R.P. Murphy)

    We’ve installed beech flooring that remained from the first floor reflooring (entrance hallway, living room, parlor, and kitchen) completed in 2007-8. Stored in the icehouse for the last decade and a half with plenty of additional surplus building materials, this handsome hardwood — originally selected for its local origins, pale color, and character-rich grain — has been repurposed as our new loft flooring.

    But, as often, I’m getting in front of myself. Before installation came acclimatization…

    Loft Flooring Update (R.P. Murphy)
    Loft Flooring Update (R.P. Murphy)

    Acclimating Beech Flooring

    A few weeks ago Tony and Peter relocated the beech hardwood flooring from one of the storage containers to the icehouse loft area where it was stacked and stickered strategically to maximize through-flow of warm, dry air. Frequent metering enabled us to track the moisture content of the flooring as it stabilized.

    Within a couple of weeks the temporary improvements to temperature and humidity control in the icehouse implemented Peter and Eric proved their value. The beech was ready to be installed.

    Loft Flooring Update (R.P. Murphy)
    Loft Flooring Update (R.P. Murphy)

    Loft Flooring Installation

    The beech was oriented perpendicular to the loft floor joists, starting at the east edge of the loft where we temporarily attached spacers (retainers for railing bottoms and the top stairway tread) to accurately determine the flooring’s start point. Beginning on this side enabled us to minimize the likelihood of a visible “pie wedge” given less than perfect geometry of our 130+ year old building.

    Prior to working west from the loft overhang, yes team marked out locations for future cabinets that will be fabricated and installed along the north and south knee walls. Because we were using remnant flooring (think limited quantity) we needed to prioritize the area of the floor that would be visible once the cabinetry was in place. We ran the flooring “ragged” under the cabinets — underlaying the figure cabinets without extending all of the way to the wall, allowing us to ensure sufficient material for the exposed area of the floor.

    Especial attention was paid to sequencing beech boards in a visually attractive progression, board-to-board, ensuring that the color and character variations would enhance the cohesive integration across entire floor.

    Another less visible but important detail: integrating the top stair tread. Peter shaped a beech slab to frame the flooring at the top of the staircase, routering in a tongue for the 90° conjunction between flooring and beech stair tread. This has added a little extra time, but it ensures a more stable joint in a high traffic, high visibility transition.

    Now that the loft flooring is installed, it’s time for sanding and sealing. I’ll post an update soon!