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Case Study: The Block House Café

Jan 13, 2015

Written By Rebecca Driscoll

 

In the heart of historic Dayton Oregon, The Block House Café recently moved into the 1886 First Baptist Church on Main Street. Working alongside architect Paul Falsetto and Fackler Construction, Versatile created a large back bar with surrounding cabinetry, wait-station and tabletops from old floor joists in the building.

 

Goals:

To create a large, functional and aesthetically pleasing back bar that hides the seismic bracing, and re-purpose original floor joists to create tabletops and a bar top.

Challenges:

The biggest challenge we faced with the back bar, which included 10’ high walnut pieces, was installation to conceal three alcoves that were created by updated seismic structuring. The tabletops and bar top proposed a few challenges as they were created from wood salvaged from the original floor joists from the building. We were concerned about the tabletops cupping or warping, and we needed to create a flat, smooth surface on the bar top as there were many wormholes in the wood.

Uniquely Versatile Solutions:

We worked around installation problems of the bar by pre-building it in 3 separate pieces with some tolerances to allow for variations in the walls when it was installed on site. The three pieces overlapped once installed to look like one piece of furniture while hiding the bracing behind.

To address the tabletops potentially warping, we added a dovetail key underneath to tie the planks together. By attaching the key to the middle plank only, the planks could expand and contract naturally, but not warp or cup. And finally, to create a smooth, flat surface on the bar top, the wormholes were filled with clear epoxy rather than a colored putty. Since the natural color of fir changes over time, the clear epoxy will make a smooth surface without worry that the wood color would ultimately shift away from the color of the putty. Versatile’s experience and expertise allowed us to anticipate potential issues and create solutions before they became real problems on site.

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