Swoops Library
All of the wood used in the shelves and trim in this four-walled, floor-to-ceiling library were milled from a single standing dead ash tree. (The emerald ash borer has killed most ash trees in southeast Michigan, making ash a kind of “recycled†wood.) Pieces with interesting grain, knots, holes, or borer-marks were saved for the more visible parts of the shelves.
The reinforcing beams were salvaged from an old barn – and, somewhat miraculously, fit right in place without needing to be cut.
The floor is maple that had been reclaimed from a shoe factory. Certain pieces had darkened from the oil of machines placed nearby, and other pieces were partially painted or worn from traffic. Instead of sanding it all down and refinishing it, we patterned all of the light and dark pieces together.
The wood door to the side porch (as well as two other doors in the house) came from a school in Terre Haute, Indiana.
The sliding step-stool still has an index card taped to its inside that says, appropriately, “Chicago Public Library.”
Furniture and fixtures: salvaged / Skylights: secondhand / Windows: new, low-E, Energy-Star / Building materials: 40% salvaged
