Now that the fall is here, I’m working on revamping the interior of my cafe. I’ve got a bunch of ideas, just a lack of time, but I’ve started really trying to focus in my off time on doing little things all the time to work towards an eventual goal, so hopefully by Christmas, I’ll be well on my way.
I’m immensely proud of my crummy little spice rack I procured from Value Village and painted, with its new vintage-y spice shakers, it would make any DIY hipster proud. I picked up a peculiar little tiki-man napkin holder and painted it too… I like weird stuff like that.
Irvin Bahnmann of Bahnmann Timber, aka the guy with all those beautiful slabs of wood.
In the Cowichan Valley, however, I found a fellow selling live edge slabs of lumber (oak, magnolia, plum, cedar, maple etc), and his prices were within my range. I had been nearly ready to give up on this idea of mine, quotes I had received were $250-$500 for an unfinished slab. I was kinda heart broken by this, started having ideas of acquiring a chainsaw and making my own slab… but then I did some further searching and emailing and met Irvin.
He has a great selection, and for $70 I picked up a slab of cedar, rough cut, but with one long straight edge already, and a live edge on the other side. It’s deep in colour, not the prettiest colour of cedar I’ve seen, but I wanted to stain it, and I’d have felt horrible covering up a beautiful marbled pattern like in some of the oak and maple he had. I don’t think he believed I’d get this big slab of wood into my car, but I did, paid the man, and off I went to show it off to my Grandpa.
Now I’m working on figuring out how to plane the thing….
Sammich 