This Old House

   This past weekend I headed down to Shawn's place to help out.  Only this time it was a little different mission then what it has been in the past.    Usually, I've helped work on something that has to do with the new house, but this summer Shawn and Vanessa plan to take down the old house.   I'm not sure if they have finalized whether they plan to take it down themselves or if they will hire someone else to do it.    Shawn had torn off the old slate siding and hauled that to a land fill.    I was asked if it was possible to make something from the boards that came off the old house.   After it was burned and buried they could look at whatever it was that I would come up with and say " Hey - that was made from the boards of our old house".    So we started to tear off some of the outside boards from the house and I'm verbally saying, "Yeah, I can make something from these" while thinking "oh my gosh - there must be twenty some nails in each of these boards".     My guess is that the wood itself has to be at least 75 years old or more.   There is nothing special with this wood.   It is just pine wood.  Some boards were okay, some had soft spots or dry rot and some were badly cracked.     Some of the better boards had nails on the inside which would indicate that they previously came off some other building and were used again when building this house.  

  Once we had a decent selection of boards, we went through and pulled out all the nails that could be seen.   We then sawed the boards to six foot lengths so that they would fit in the back of my pickup.    I had an idea as to what to make from these boards, but I did not share that idea with either Shawn or Vanessa.  (That way the idea can change - It might be a giant dog house or it might be a tooth pick holder.)     The boards were all 3/4 of an inch thick and some were 7 inches wide while others were a short 5 inches wide.  

Once I got the lumber home I went through each board one more time looking for additional nails.   And I found some more.  (Nails must of been cheap several years ago.)   I even got out my metal detector (the one I go treasure hunting with) and ran it over each board to see if I would pick up any signals.   I did pick up some sounds, but I did not see any more nails.    (So much for that idea.) (Remind me to wear pants and a hat in future pictures.)

    When I thought I had all the nails pulled, we (I talked Pam into helping) ran the boards through my planner.   This helped clean up the wood by shaving off the aged part.    The problem was that my 3/4 inch thick boards were now 5/8 of an inch thick.    Also I came across another 7 nails buried in the wood as I was running them through the planner.   (I wonder if that is why the metal detector kept buzzing  - Hmmm  maybe that wasn't such a bad idea after all.  If only one would follow up on his plan.)   Even though the nails were small nails and the planner is a noisy machine, there is a distinct sound made when a planner knife and a nail shank come in contact with each other.  Not a good sound.  (Looks like someday I may have to shop for some new planner knives.)    When done, I ended up with several boards that are riddled with nail holes.  Still I think I can come up with enough wood to build that toothpick holder.    We will let you know next week how that turned out.