International Wood International Wood 2004 | Page 30

Solid Lacewood flooring,
manufactured in Brazil, was used
throughout the second floor.
30
IMPORTED WOOD
feet long, in the lodge.
Back on the site, the Johnstons
reoriented the structure to better capture
the view, and came up with a new plan.
“The view is what you buy, so everything
has to be oriented to the view,” says
Johnston. “There’s a south-facing ridge that
comes right down to the property, so we
designed it to fit that ridge and to make the
most of the southern sun exposure.” The
main house is L-shaped, but an additional
wing – the 3,000 square-foot woodworking
shop – makes the entire structure “U”-shaped.
For the interior of the lodge there
weren’t any specific design goals per se,
except to find wood species that would
look good with the exposed timber. The
logs were largely left natural in color; only a
very light stain was applied. The owners
knew they wanted a darker floor, and when
they saw Lacewood samples from
distributor FitzGerald Wood Products, they
immediately took to its look. Johnston says
they gravitated toward a “quieter” cut of
Lacewood, one that avoided the extreme
figuring often associated with that species.
“Lacewood is a species that has
different varieties of fleck,” says Patrick
FitzGerald of FitzGerald Wood Products.
“Some has very small flecking that actually
looks like lace, while other cuts have a
much larger fleck. So, we had to hand-
select from the veneer panels and flitches
for the size of the fleck. Other than that, it
really doesn’t require any special handling.”
Lacewood veneers were carefully
selected for cabinetry and bookshelves in
the study, and solid Lacewood was picked
for much of the flooring on the second
level. The flooring was manufactured in
Brazil, so pieces with smaller fleck had to
be manually selected.
Two coats of lacquer were used on the
Lacewood floor, used throughout the
second level save for the bathrooms, and it
has proven to be very stable, Johnston says.
DURABLE DECKING
“Because so much rain falls in the
mountains of North Carolina – 60 inches or
more every year – we had real concerns
about what to use for the outdoor deck and
railings,” says Johnston. “Normally, treated
Englemann Spruce or Pine are used, but
they don’t stand up to these conditions
very well. We recommended that the
owners use Ipé, a South American wood,
which is naturally rot resistant. It also has a
slight reddish color, which the owners liked,
although they know it will gray over time.”