Recycling with Shiplap

One thing that I have found out in this year long process of trying to restore a 100 year old home is that everyone wants to help.  Our goal from the beginning has been to really restore the home by keeping the character of the home as it was in 1921.  For example, the baseboards are not the type of baseboards you see in today's construction.  Back during this period baseboards were a 1" by 4" and just sat flat to the wall.

Last month I got a phone call from someone who knew that we had undertaken this project and wanted to let us know about a home in Abilene that was being torn down.  The home was built around the same time so he wanted to let us know in case there was anything we could use before it was torn down.

Low and behold, guess what we found---SHIPLAP!  The entire house had shiplap on the walls in every room.  I told him that we would love to try to salvage some of the wood if possible.  After leveling our house there are several walls that cracked so we thought we could cover it with the shiplap and minimize the cost for replacing with sheetrock.

So, guess what we did over the Christmas holiday.  We removed shiplap from one old house and took it to our old house so we can install it when its time!

What is shiplap anyway?  Chip & Joanna Gaines made shiplap a household word because they made such a big to-do about finding it in the homes they remodeled.  But, I realized when writing this that I didn't really know much about why it was called shiplap.  So I did a little research and here is what I learned.

Shiplap was originally used in the maritime industry to keep water out when building ships.  The joint on opposing boards became water tight and thus the overlapping boards were ideal for constructing ships.

When they were used inside homes, they were not meant to be exposed and were often covered up by using fabric or muslin.  If you look closely in the pictures you can see the remains of some of the muslin that was used on this shiplap.  I can only assume that the "watertight" feature also became "airtight" when using in homes.

As I mentioned in the earlier post, we are finishing up the outside.  Now that the plumber has finished replacing all of the old pipe under the house with the new pipes & moved plumbing to where the kitchen will be moved, we were able to start replacing the stone under pinning.  With the unseasonably warm temperatures over Christmas break we got most of the stone reset and cemented under the house to close it back up--I don't want any little critters crawling up under there.  We didn't get it all finished but are very close!  Next, we will begin the process of painting the outside so we can get inside and start working on cracked walls and the cosmetic work!