I go tomorrow to pick up some wood to finish the inside of my "MAN CAVE" (evil villianous laughter)! Quite lucky how I stumbled across it. I put an ad in the news paper stating that I was looking for some old wood. I got an email a week later from an elderly couple about 20 miles away. They spent an entire summer pain stakingly taking down the tongue and groove 1x4x14 boards piece by piece out of a two story house that had belonged to one of their parents. They did not know exactly how old the house was, but they did know that it was well over a 100 years old. They wanted to do something special with the wood, so they stored it in their 2 car garage, leaving the cars out in the rain :-) 6 years later, the elderly man brok his hip, and the elderly woman is pissed off that she is still parking in the front yard, haha, so she jumped at the oppurtunity to get her garage back, called me, and told me to simply come and pic the wood up. I was obviously elated! So, to make a long story short, I go tomorrow to pick up this wood. I have no idea what kind of wood it is (oak, knotty pine, heart pine, etc), I have no idea how much square footage(though they make it sound like I will not be able to tot it all off)(haha, they are very mistaken, it may take me more than one trip, but I am taking every piece of it) and I really don't know the condition of the wood, although the elderly woman swears it is in mint condition. So my question is, do I need to do something special to the wood. I am going for an "Old English Pub" feel to my 600 Sq.Ft. man cave, complete with Bar area and Pool table, is it as simple as just putting the wood up, or do I need to sand each piece and pput some type of finish on it? Also, do you put it up vertically or horizontally? I am an avid DIY, but lack a lot of the knowledge needed to really do much :-)

The Medic

 

Welcome to the forums! Who cares what type wood it is? The price was exactly on bid. The wood, having been in a garage for 6 years, will need to acclimate to your cave for a while. If you have bare walls, I would install blocking across all the studwork at 3' and 6'. This will allow you to install it vertically. That is the way it was installed originally. If you can, I would clean it and seal/poly all sides b4 installation. IMO, you should not paint it, as it will have a beauty all its own in its natural state.

 

I already have Studs on 16''. I framed a "MAN CAVE" inside of my 30'x40'x12' metal building. I built a wall 30' feet across it to divide it in half, put an 8 foot ceiling on it, and essentially just added 600 sq ft of storage space up top by putting down 3/4'' T&G plyboard and a stair case. Never have done any type of framing or stair casing before, so I bought a book, and just went to work. It was pretty easy to be honest.

So you think that "free" is a fair price? I have been pricing wood online for about a month now, and antique wood has a fairly high price tag on it. let's say that there is 2000 sq ft worth of wood, depending on the condition, I kinda feel like I hit the lottery :-)

I pick it up at 200pm today, I will make sure to post the details, whether it is all rotten, full of termites, or whether it is in perfect condtion.