Used Anew LLC
RECLAIMING REPURPOSING UPCYCLING
Sparta, WI
A ‘Green Alternative’ company engaged in the production of easy to use reclaimed materials.
Hints, Tips, & Terms
Just a few bits of information in answer to frequently asked questions.
We also have videos of DIY Tutorials and explanations of some of our materials. You can find those on our videos/media page here.
How to "Measure Up"
-
Square Feet is a 2 dimensional measurement of area. Length x width = area. If you have a 10' x 12' room, you'll need 120 square feet of material to cover either the floor or the ceiling. If your wall is 12' long and 8' tall, you'll need 96 square feet of material to cover your wall.
-
Linear Feet is a one dimensional measurement. It doesn't matter how wide or how thick the piece is for this measurement. All that is accounted for is how long it is. For example, you might consider using 1" thick by 3" wide oak battons for base trim around the perimeter of the room we described above. By adding the length of the four sides together (12+12+10+10), you know you will need 44 linear feet of battons to go all the way around.
-
Board Feet: Sorry. Here's where it gets complicated! Board feet measures volume by essentially multiplying together the 3 dimensions of a piece of lumber - length x width x height. A board foot is commonly 1 foot x 1 foot x 1 inch (12"x12"x1"=144 cubic inches), but any shape containing 144 cubic inches of wood equals one board foot. You can calculate how many board feet you have in a piece of lumber by dividing the number of cubic inches by 144. For example, stack the two, one inch thick 12" x 12" boards on top of each other. It's pretty easy to imagine that you now have 2 board feet, but to test the math take 12"x12"x2"=288 and divide by 144 to get 2 board feet. But what if your lumber is 6" thick by 8" wide and 10' long? Ten feet is equal to 120", so 6"x8"x120"=5760 square inches. Divide by 144 to get 40 board feet. Want to know the simple way to do all this? Get a board foot calculator application for your smart phone and leave your pencil in your pocket like we do!
Materials and "What's what?"
With such a wide variety of materials knowing what will be best to use for your project can be tricky. Here we've given a bit more insight that may help.
-
"Tongue & Groove" - The two edges of wood fit into adjacent edges.
-
End-Matching - This is an extra milling step of cutting a tongue and groove on the ends of flooring pieces. There are pros and cons for this process that has become a standard in flooring production. We can now produce your flooring with or without end matching. (End matching is an additional charge.) Our tongue and groove accent wall and ceiling materials are not end matched.
-
Shiplap - We typically stock vintage and new pine shiplap material. Shiplap joinery is identifiable by its overlapping edges.
-
Weathered Siding - These boards are mostly recovered from the exterior of agricultural buildings like barns, granaries, wooden sheds, etc. In this area we typically find weathered red and weathered grey boards and occasionally weathered white. Most of the siding boards we stock are installed on the barns vertically and may be from 8" to 12" wide by various lengths.
-
Naily Wood - "Naily Wood" is the name we've given to lumber that was removed from vintage rooftops where wooden shakes were held in place with tiny shake nails. These and larger nails used to add asphalt or steel roofing materials, pepper the surface with dark nail holes. Roofing boards were also typically the leftover boards not chosen for siding and flooring, so they are more likely to have knots and knot holes, bark on the edges and other elements that create a high character surface like no other!
-
Barn Boards - Many people think of "Barn Boards" as the weathered siding on the exterior of barns but in truth, there are many types of boards that come from barns. If you ask about barn boards, we'll ask, "Which type are you interested in?"
Miscellaneous
-
French Cleat mount - We use this system on the back of our headboards and some other wall-mount items. It's a great system for hanging heavy items on the wall using Newton's favorite force - gravity - to do the work.
