Posted 21st June 2025 by Mongers Admin
INTERNAL JOINERY
With our floors all finished we are now working on all the internal fittings. The plumbers and electricians are here, but we will deal with that in the next chapter and our very talented cabinet maker is beginning to instal the kitchen, of which more later.
The challenges of using reclaimed timber for internal joinery largely come down to time and resources. We could have used reclaimed boards for our door linings but, not having a workshop on site where we can cut the timber to size, we have bought new. I used to have a fully equipped workshop designated to dealing with reclaimed wood. We had good metal detectors, and every piece of timber was carefully checked for nails but even with the best attention, saw blades would blunt very quickly. The blades were changed and sharpened once a week. A company would collect and deliver, and so, apart from setting the machines up with a new blade we could continue to work without a break in production. However, most carpentry shops are not happy to work this way. It was therefore prudent to use mainly new timber for door linings, skirtings and architraves.
I did have some reclaimed architrave and skirting in the wood store and we have used what we can, but most of the time that you remove architrave and skirting from demolition you recover very little that is in long enough lengths to reuse successfully. I had enough to do the small WC in reclaim and we removed some interesting skirting from a Norwich property years ago which has been in the store for a while. There has proved to be enough to do all the hallway, kitchen and corridor, which is very pleasing and provides a bit of individuality to these areas.
A couple of tips for using second-hand skirtings and architrave; you will likely not get enough long lengths of skirting for all the long sides of a room. If you place the joins in the boards behind radiators and where furniture is to go they will be less noticeable. If your architrave is a bit too short for the doorways use plinth blocks at the bottom.
STAIRS
In recent years many churches up and down the country have been selling off their pews in the modern trend to make the church interior a more flexible a space by introducing movable chairs for all or part of the congregation. Some small and decorative pews are useful and lovely in a domestic, restaurant or pub setting, but many are too long and plain to sell as seating without much alteration, hence we had some long lengths of pitch pine from pew seats in our store. This has been very useful in constructing our stairs, being lovely timber, thicker and wider than most floorboards and largely free from screws and other blemishes. Being in long lengths it has less wastage, which is always a bonus when utilising a finite resource.
The small run of stairs up to the main bedroom is constructed from a batch of Georgian pine floorboards, they being quite wide but in short lengths. I am not terribly bothered by having a mixture of wood about the place, we will be introducing furniture of an eclectic range of styles but things that we like and believe to be harmonious. We are not trying to conform to any particular period or style but hope to maintain a simplicity and modern look without using much that is very modern!
RE-USED FEATURES
Sometimes described as up-cycling, not a term that I particularly like, what we are doing is repurposing lovely features in a new environment.
We have endeavoured to be very selective about the items that we have included. It is very tempting to try to incorporate every lovely piece from our extensive stock, accumulated over the years, but the aim is to create a coherent and simple space. Paired down is the ethos, although the downstairs loo maybe the exception, where we have introduced a fine example of late Victorian glass, with WC and acanthus leaves etched into, a very ornate lock, panelling and some interesting sanitaryware items, but more of the sanitaryware later.
Kitchens are a great area in which to utilise salvage, for worktops, islands and cupboards. We have repurposed a pitch pine altar from a side chapel in a local church as our main kitchen island. This has had drawers inserted and will have a reclaimed slate top. The project has a one bed annex, which also contains a kitchen where we have used a shop counter, originally from a North Norfolk bakery and subsequently in use for many years in our shop, as a storage unit and room divider.
Our house has a small entrance hall, which, to the visitor, gives the impression of being part of a quite modest space. However, this opens out onto the generous open plan kitchen and living areas, with views through the building. We decided that we should create a dividing wall between the hall and the rest of the house that incorporated a feature glass screen, thus maximising the welcome provided by the views through the house.
A while ago we removed some fine oak panelling and glassed doorways from a solicitors’ office in the centre of Ipswich, which was originally the headquarters of the Ipswich Electricity Supply Company. The doors and surrounds were sold a long time ago, but left in the store were elements of partitions and some copper light windows. These we have taken apart and rebuilt as a room divider. Utilising elements of the carved English oak frames and some panels.
In my experience most cabinet makers these days are not adverse to working with repurposing old pieces, however, design them carefully, it needs to be a coherent object that looks as if it was meant to be one piece rather than an obvious ‘marriage’. I think that you are better to do something that could be considered new and have to explain its origin rather than, in an attempt to keep the items originality, risk it looking ‘homemade’.