A personal Project of a life long dream

In June 2019 JPR Lighting moved into “The Hollies” just outside Winchester on circa 3.5 acres with 0.5acres solely set up for JPR. The land has been left for decades which has grown into a micro forest. English Oak / Red Oak / Scots Pine / Eucalyptus / Larch / Elm (Yes Elm) / Billy Goat Willows / Ash, to name a few. Unfortunately, several of these trees have had to be felled as either being too close to the buildings and a 42yr old English Oak allowed to grow too close to the Septic tank. The small branches / timber I have cut for firewood for next season 2021 onwards but what does one do with the large trunks and large amount of beautiful lumber left? One buys a Horizontal Band sawmill to fulfil a lifelong dream of utilizing materials from a site back into the buildings Architecture on that site such as Oak Door frames / skirting / Architrave / Live edge Resin river counter tops / Live edge floating shelving and beautiful live edge light rafts as the image shown. After milling to 45mm thick 2.5m long live edge slabs for the floating shelving and light rafts they were stacked in a confined airtight room with a dehumidifier to force a high percentage of moister out, 5 planks resulted in over 60ltr of water in just a 5-week period bringing the moister content down to 22%. Now 22% is still too high for joinery / furniture etc as these require max 8%-10% moister before any work can be done on them but for floating shelving and light rafts its ideal especially when I want them all to check (another name for cracking), warp and twist during their equilibrium in the house. After equilibrium and the moister content down to 8-10% in 6months or so, the checks will be resin filled with glow in the dark resin and a flood coat poured over to finish (Currentley 4 coats of Danish Oil so they can breath and allow moister to escape and all wood worm treated of course), hopefully they will look 100yrs old very soon. The image shows a 2.5m live edge slab with the bark removed and sanded from 40g / 80g / 120g to 240grit which I am utilizing as a light raft above our dining area, suspended from this will be 4 No dimmable LED vintage bulbs with rope wire and RGB indirect lighting all voice controlled via our google home. Local blacksmith made the Building anchor look alike supports from scrap iron suspended via black chain. This Saturday will be its installation along with a similar one above the breakfast bar and of course will send images of the finish result. Currently drying out in a European method I have more Oak live edge planks and a huge amount of Eucalyptus from a 160ft tree that had to come down. Some of my Architect colleagues / friends have shown interest in utilizing some of these slabs on future projects in board rooms / Director offices etc. At present I have no intention of selling these but of course money talks and could pay for future projects here at The Hollies so after the finished install images let me know and I will see what can be done. Hope you all wish me luck for this Saturday and if you have any questions on the process just let me know.