Timber flooring for the new build

The Matai flitch

The ceiling had many layers of paints to make them look like timber

As I remove the layers of acrylics, oil paints, shelacs, varnishes, and calcium based paints, I am finding timber.  Beautiful timber….  And sometimes borer, not so beautiful.

The wood inspires me to bring it through to the grey house.

Between the two buildings there is a relationship.  They are connected.  The important Heritage principle is that the two buildings are unique to each other.  This stops confusion between Heritage and new.

The important Architectural principle is that they speak to each other.

The timber is their conversation.

And then we met Thomas.

Thomas is a connector.  He’s a problem solver. And he has access to solutions. He has family in the wood industry.  Family by blood, and family by association.

We now have a room full of Rimu floorboards for the lounge.  We have a large flitch of Matai being slowly stripped back to clean grain, after ten years on the West Coast, in the room next door.  We have Rimu sarking waiting to be collected.  It will clad some new walls.

When our home in Lyttelton came down we salvaged some beams that we will turn into stair treads. We hope we will have enough. A second hand dealer in Christchurch stole some from our Lyttelton section before we could get it into secure storage. (That is worse than having borer).

We recovered the front doors from Lyttelton, and will use those  in our foyer. We have other salvaged doors we will restore and use upstairs.

Is it too much wood?

No.

Will we end up with a log cabin?

No!

There is something about wood. It has resilience. It has a story.

I went to a talk about time travel. The interesting thing about time travel was that it really only became a concept through the writing of HG Wells at about the same time as the advent of Photography. With Photography people realised the ability to ‘freeze’ time. This was ‘real time’ and not the interpreted time of paintings and books. People were also able to return to a previous time by viewing images created in that moment.

With this notion of capturing a moment, came the idea of returning to that time. Trees are witness to the passage of time, and to a limited degree, record the nature of events. This makes them story tellers, or tomes.

Whether I am stripping away the layers of varnishes and paints, or sanding my way through years of weathering, working with wood leaves me feeling calm. Removing these outer layers brings back truths about the story of the building. It reveals changes that were disguised by paints,  and the truth about the way the building was made. There are many layers of time to be revealed.

The Red House has many types of timber. It gives me permission to be eclectic in my Grey House choices.