We’ve been working on a big remodel in Kula, Maui for the past year. The three acre property has a 3,500 square foot main house and a separate building that houses a four car garage, gallery, and a studio apartment. When I was there the first time in January, I noticed a lot of building materials still there from when the house was built in 1991. I started to get the feeling.
I’d felt it many times before: it was the anxiety of the unused wood. Lumber that had many years earlier been brought from far away forests with the promise of becoming something wonderful: a house on the side of Haleakala with an incredible view of the island and the amazing Hawaiian sunsets.
While most of the wood purchased for the job was used, a great stash of lumber had remained untouched, lonely and unfulfilled for over twenty years. As is common, the builder had obtained extra lumber, (always better to have extra than not enough) and some of it was big: 4 X 8s, 4 X 10s and even some 6 X 12s. Plus a ton of 2Xs. This wood had some time ago resigned itself to an existence of dimness and the muffled sounds of humans from upstairs; so close to the dream but never quite able to see it. Still, after all this time, the wood looked on the bright side. The lumber had been stored in a dry place under the house. Which meant, although dusty and occasionally visited by mice, it was perfectly fine. Its destiny might one day still be fulfilled.
I think it was Michelangelo who thought, that when he sculpted he wasn’t creating a statue as much as releasing it from the marble. That’s the sense I had of all the unused lumber laying under the house. It was meant for something much more.
Contractors sometimes call this “repurposing.” To me, it’s more like helping the wood to find the true expression of its soul. We got to work.
Using some of the old beams, we built the structure of a new deck in front of the house. Inside, we used the 2 X 4s to frame the walls of a new bedroom. But there was still more. So once the deck was done, we built two massive benches out of the 6 X 12s and placed them at the ends of the deck. Next, we built a set of hand rails out of the 4 X 8s. It took some time to do the work on the big pieces of lumber, cutting and shaping them to match the contours of the house.
It took a while, but once the benches were done they seemed to fit right in, like they had been there all along.

–Mark Alvis