You may recall that last April, M and I had the old decaying support pillars of our century-old home replaced with steel columns. Here are the retired wooden pillars:
M instructed me to make sure that the contractors who installed the new columns left the old pillars with us. She had something arty in mind; I had no idea what, exactly, but have learned to rely on her judgment in such matters. So the old columns sat in the basement for a while, and were relocated to the back yard after that.
Months passed (envision pages of a calendar flying, just like in the movies), and we moved on to other house renovation projects. The new kitchen took shape, and M eyed the walls of that room. She described what she wanted to do: mount the pillars on a wall or two (or three) as accent pieces. To that end, M used a sander to remove the paint from the pillars, and then used the table saw to first cut away the old decayed ends, and then to cut the pillars into sections. She experimented with stains on a couple of the sections, but ultimately decided that the natural distress of the wood looked much better.
And then, with some minimal assistance from her husband, M mounted the post sections on the kitchen walls. Like this:
Closer view here:
And here:
My wife never fails to amaze me.
