What is Rough Cut Lumber?
Rough cut lumber is to Home Superstore lumber as chicken is to McNuggets. But, we used some to make The Firefly at Madison apartment upcycling project unique and beautiful on a tight budget.
You all know that wood comes from trees. Someone cuts the tree down, there is hauling, and there is a sawmill, and then there is transportation, and processing, and energy-intense kiln drying, and smoothing, and grading, and planing, and more transportation, and packaging, and stamping, and the resulting 1X4 ends up on the shelf of TFBBHIS (the famous big box home improvement store). and you buy it from someone you don’t know.
Well, rough cut lumber leaves off the last 2/3 of all of that, and you buy it from a human.
In our experience with actually using it, Rough cut lumber had its merits and disadvantages. One of the merits is that it is cheap which in the beginning offset the main disadvantage, which is that it has a lot of moisture in it.
Back Story:
This is an update from an original blog post from the year 2019. To make a long story short, instead of paying an idiot contractor to do something, we decided to do that something ourselves. Did that make the project any less lovely? No, we are ready to say it added some extra rustic to it, and we like rustic.
To make a long story short, we experimented with a lot of building materials, tools, equipment and other gear to get all of this done, and learned a lot. It also became another example of Human Scale Living.
Here, in no real order, are the Pros and Cons of Rough Cut Lumber
1. It’s cheap. Not only are you keeping the money in the community, you are avoiding all of that cost in processing and transporting, and rough cut lumber is less than 1/2 the cost per linear foot as the same size McWood at TFBBHIS.
2. It’s soft: We were forced to use some normal wood at one point to finish up the downstairs apartment. We were hard pressed to put a standard screw in it without splitting it. Rough Cut Lumber, however, will happily be nailed, screwed, glued, and fastened in whatever way you want with no splitting or cracking.
3. It is interesting, and has a story. Since It comes from the local area, it is deliberately unique, and anything you make with it is going to be a one-off, which is the very reason we used it. (unique is part of the business plan around here).
Variability
4. Rough Cut Lumber is irregular. No two pieces of this are the same width, because it is made by cutting a natural material, and there are all sorts of irregularities and imperfections. Feel free to consider this a “pro” if you want that look. Because of this, the professionals at this business will plane this stuff down and make it beautiful. We will screw it to the wall and call it good.
5. It smells like wood. Don’t underestimate this as an important feature. We’re trying to appeal to all of the senses.
Even More Pros and Cons
6. Because it comes from a tree, and is untreated and unfinished, rough cut wood still wants to be the same shape as it was while it was a tree. Even the so-called straight trees are actually a little curvy. It’s possible for this to carry through to the board, especially if you let it lay around in a pile. Curvy lumber is probably not the greatest thing in the world, but it can usually be convinced to lie straight with some effort. There was no more waste than your typical McNugget wood.
7. Rough cut does occasionally have surface contamination i.e. dirt and bird droppings, but it can be hosed off without ill effect.
8. Possible Aging Issues: No telling what kind of fungus will grow on this stuff. The jury is still out. Maybe I will bleach it at some point.
Slivers and Painting
9. Slivers. I sort of want to make a bed frame out of this stuff, but because this is rough I think not. Don’t use it on fancy furniture that you are going to sit on or touch regularly. It is fine as trim.
9. Crew resistance: None. This crew would nail cow pies to the wall if we paid them.
10. You don’t really have to paint it. The design department occasionally suggests that we whitewash it. I say leave it the color it is. It’s natural, contrasting, and I believe the color will change over time which will be cool. If they white wash it while I am not looking I will not be too annoyed.
Post Script
In our case, the Human was named “Junior”, although I guess he probably has a real name that nobody remembers. Junior has been around a long time, and owns a little sawmill not far from the Firefly in a place called Shady Dale. This illustrious fellow is probably worthy of a blog post of his own.
Junior has a little house on the site, which he used to live in with Mrs. Junior, when she was still around. He has a lot of this rough wood used as a ceiling material, which I never considered, actually. It makes sense as a ceiling material if you get it more or less free.
The Outcome
What we didn’t know at the time, but know now, is that some this got a little mold on it at some point, and we had to re-do it and hit everything with Kilz. This was due to the high moisture content.
What we knew at the time is that some applications should not get it, such as anything outdoors. We’re going to have to replace some of the wood around our kitchen garden because of this.
The Rough Cut lumber, being high moisture as it is, is mostly still around the place in the form of trim, and in fact one of the swing beds made out of it has come out fine.
Shrinkage: It is true that when a piece of lumber dries out there is shrinkage. but it is also true that the shrinkage is width-wise rather than lengthwise. We did experience some curling, but no pulling apart at the seams, which made us happy.
If we had to do it over again would we do the same thing? Probably.
Bottom Line
Rough Cut Lumber is the perfect stuff for trim for this rustic guest house, installs easily and cheaply, and might not be all that great for some snooty elegant place but in this case, we don’t care because we are trying to cut down on “snooty”. You are invited to come admire it personally at the Firefly.
Also, this is one of these rare instances where the actual trip to get the wood, and meet the guy selling it, have become part of the story. If you don’t have a few stories to tell at the end of a project you haven’t been trying hard enough.
