We recently added a cheeseboard to the BREWED menu. It's something I was really excited about, because who doesn't love cheese? Especially when it's great locally made cheese! We thought it would be fun to make our own boards and I was charged with the task. BREWED is located in the heart of the Historic Fairmount Neighborhood, and so I thought it would be fun to repurpose some old original shiplap wood from the neighborhood to make the boards. If you are unfamiliar with shiplap, it is a pine siding that was used to line the walls of houses in the 1920-1940's. Back in the day, they did not have sheetrock and so walls were lined with pine. They would then nail a sticky fabric to the shiplap wood and roll on wallpaper to the fabric. Sheetrock later became popular in the 50's and 60's and it was often the case that it was nailed directly on top of the original shiplap.
When I work on old houses, I love it when we discover shiplap underneath the drywall. We often will uncover it for accent walls and sometimes will pull the wood down and repurpose it for other projects. I was out of shiplap at the moment and so I headed down the street to one of my favorite stores, Old Home Supply. Old Home Supply is the neighborhoods source for all things relating to old houses. They sell original fixtures, door knobs, tubs, wood and anything you could pull off of an old house. Luckily they had some original shiplap in that they had just pulled from a Fairmount house. I snagged a few great pieces and headed home.
When I got home I cleaned off the shiplap planks and cut them down with my mitre saw. I then sanded them down using my orbital sander. I started with some 80 grit paper and then finished them off with 100 grit. Once they were all sanded down, I used some denatured alcohol to clean them up and pull out any sawdust. Since we were using these in the restaurant, I wanted a finish that could take a beating and could handle being washed. So I finished them off with some oil based polyurethane. The oil based poly takes a few days to fully cure, but it is an incredibly tough finish that should last and hold up over time.
I think they turned out really great! Next time you are in BREWED, order a cheese board. It's pretty cool to know you are eating off of a 100 year old piece of wood salvaged from right here in the neighborhood.
