See How an Industrial Wood Bookcase Is Made From Start to Finish by the Woodworkers at birdloft

A Never-Say-Never, Woodworking Love Story

Not many people get the chance to say they own and operate a successful business with their spouse, but that’s what was in the cards for Jeff Libby and Adrienne Wicks of Birdloft — they just didn’t know it at first. “I used to deliver meat, chicken and cheese to this deli," Jeff recalls. "And there was a married couple there and they made sandwiches all day long next to each other. I was in my 20s then, was on top of the world, and I just thought, ‘Oh, my God! That would be terrible!' But I didn’t know anything, I was just a kid.” Now, he works alongside his woodworking wife in their spacious Tacoma, Washington, studio.

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Road Trip Revelation

In 2008, Jeff met Adrienne at architecture school and the two shared classes, teachers and side jokes about never making furniture. Little did they know, after a 9,000-mile, post-graduation road trip during the recession, the two would ultimately end up amassing loads of salvaged wood in a tiny Seattle apartment that would soon become the base for their custom furniture business. "We started really small with a chop saw and did glue-ups in the guest bedroom on the carpet," Jeff laughs. "It was great."

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ISO: More Studio Space

Soon enough, Jeff's side hustle quickly engulfed his Capitol Hill apartment, bursting at the seams with beautiful, salvaged wood and a growing punch list of client projects. "We just kept growing," Adrienne says. "So we moved to Tacoma for more space. And at the time, I was still looking for a job in architecture, but Jeff had set up an Etsy presence and it grew and grew to the point where he needed an extra hand — that’s when I started working with him. We started designing more furniture and it took off from there."

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Know Your Role(s)

One of their most popular products is the open air bookcase, an industrial, rustic design dreamed up and handcrafted by the woodworking duo. “We do well together and it helps that we have somewhat specialized [roles]," Adrienne explains. "Jeff does all of our welding and I try to stay mostly in the woodshop.” Jeff adds, "Where it really is good for the furniture and for the customers is that we design together and have two minds coming at it. We can make a better piece of furniture in the end.”

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Old-Growth What?

But the most important part of any Birdloft design is the old-growth wood — a type of lumber that grows naturally and slowly in forests over hundreds of years. "We find beautiful old wood, usually from some old barn or some old warehouse in Seattle," Jeff says. "But it all came from the same northwest forest that was here long before any of us were. It's a wood with histories. And you can have years and years and years of a tree’s life in a single inch, just a blurring of spring and autumn, light and dark."

Watch the Video: Tour Birdloft Custom Furniture Studio in Tacoma, Washington

The Wood Library

Once Jeff and Adrienne come back with a fresh haul of antique wood, it goes to one of Jeff's favorite spots, a hipster-like lot with a special name. "The first part of [making] the bookcase is we go out to the wood library and hunt through the stacks to find the wood we want to use," Jeff explains. "Typically, they start as 18-, 20- or 25-foot-long planks that were the structure of some old warehouse or barn."

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Special Selections

Jeff removes a rough, reclaimed plank from the wood library that will eventually become one of five shelves in the open air bookcase. But before the wood can make the trip inside, Jeff inspects each board for knots, spots and rusty nails. "I’m out there with some very high-tech tools," Jeff laughs. "Like a crow bar, pry bar, hammer and my tin cup to collect the nails I get out."

Watch the Video: Tour Birdloft Custom Furniture Studio in Tacoma, Washington

Measure of a Man

Working with old-growth wood can be a tad more complex than picking up new, pre-cut planks from the big-box store. For starters, old-growth wood is scarce and not readily available if a measuring error happens. But after years of honing handmade furniture, Jeff's handiwork and design sense is now ultra refined. "It's all pretty straightforward," Jeff explains. "I want to make sure that when Adrienne is drilling holes for the steel she doesn’t end up having to go through a bunch of knots, so I kind of try to think about where things are going to be before making a cut."

Watch the Video: Tour Birdloft Custom Furniture Studio in Tacoma, Washington

The Waiting Is the Hardest Part

Jeff places the freshly sawn boards side-by-side on a worktable inside the temperature-controlled studio — where they'll rest for a week or more. The resting process has a name: acclimation. "After we cut [the wood] to length, we let it find its new way of being," Jeff says. "And that's because the wood is always moving," Adrienne adds. "Even if it's been kiln dried, it's still going to move a little bit with moisture fluctuations. We like to let it sit for about a week in the warm, dry shop."

Watch the Video: Tour Birdloft Custom Furniture Studio in Tacoma, Washington

Pacific Northwest Guarantee

Jeff uses a digital moisture meter to check the progress of wood acclimation. Normal wood moisture readings often range between 6% and 14%. And because Tacoma is in the Pacific Northwest, Jeff says, "We usually know for sure that our workshop is the dampest, coolest place that the wood will ever live, so we can assume it’s going to shrink a little bit. We plan for that movement so it doesn’t break itself apart once it's built."

Watch the Video: Tour Birdloft Custom Furniture Studio in Tacoma, Washington

Mrs. Sandman

Adrienne spends most of her time in protective, over-the-head earmuffs, lightly covered in sawdust. No matter the demand — a rugged, rustic bookcase or clean, sleek dining table — Adrienne has the tools to achieve the desired outcome. "If we're keeping patina [on the wood], I usually start with 60- or 80-grit sandpaper and just give it a quick sand, which helps bring out the saw blade marks and exposes some of the lighter wood," Adrienne says.

Watch the Video: Tour Birdloft Custom Furniture Studio in Tacoma, Washington

Board Game

Century-old saw marks often become exposed while sanding, giving each custom piece a true, one-of-a-kind birthmark. The big reveal allows Adrienne to select which boards will be the front, top and center of the bookcase during assembly.

Watch the Video: Tour Birdloft Custom Furniture Studio in Tacoma, Washington

Even Flow

The true nature of reclaimed wood is anything but straight and level, which is why a woodworking cheatsheet is a must-have. Before drilling can begin, Adrienne must mark each board with a pencil and template. "We vary the spacing for the legs depending on the width [of the board] and use a template to mark the center so they stack up nice on top of each other and don't get too crazy," Adrienne says with a laugh. Jeff chimes in, "Because sometimes the boards are slightly different widths and thicknesses, so the template just bisects each board so there’s an invisible middle, center line."

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Drill Sergeant

"When everything is marked very accurately, then we drill," Adrienne says, eyeing Jeff. "And I guess I’ve taken on more of this task, as it used to be you." Jeff laughs, "Yeah, well, you outdid me — you’re more meticulous. And thank heavens that wood has some variations from perfect, because that's part of the secret of the rigidity of this very open structure. The imperfections of the wood are its virtue."

Watch the Video: Tour Birdloft Custom Furniture Studio in Tacoma, Washington

Test Drive

Because each slab of wood can vary in size, Adrienne's process involves a repetitive but important step that ensures success during assembly. "I kind of eyeball it and make all the initial holes [with the drill] and then go back and test the fit with a piece of the round bar that will eventually become the legs to make sure it fits," she explains.

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Paw Patrol

As Adrienne finishes the final round of drilling, Otto, the neighbor shop dog, roams the lot miraculously unfazed by the sounds of sanding and sawing. He especially likes to oversee activities in the wood library, specifically when the wood is ready to be oiled and dried outside.

Watch the Video: Tour Birdloft Custom Furniture Studio in Tacoma, Washington

One Coat Job

Once the shelves have been sanded, drilled and fit tested with a steel bar, they take a quick trip to the outdoor patio for a tan. "We use Dalys SeaFin Teak Oil, the Seattle brand, on bookcases [and] typically give them just one coat of oil because there’s not really a spill danger," Adrienne says.

Watch the Video: Tour Birdloft Custom Furniture Studio in Tacoma, Washington

Oil vs. Stain

Why not use stain? "The oil is nice [because] it just brings out the natural color of the wood and lets it really shine through," Adrienne explains. "Unlike stains, which can sometimes kind of dull the figure in the wood. We use oils as much as we can."

Watch the Video: Tour Birdloft Custom Furniture Studio in Tacoma, Washington

High and Dry

And just like that, the sawn, acclimated, sanded, drilled and oiled old-growth planks are left to dry out for several days. While they cure, the Birdloft team moves to the next step in the design process: steelwork.

Watch the Video: Tour Birdloft Custom Furniture Studio in Tacoma, Washington

Heavy Metal

The back room of the Birdloft studio is wholly dedicated to steel and also the holding area for round bar selections that will soon become legs for the open air bookcase. "There are plenty of people doing custom furniture, but most places specialize or focus on the wood," Jeff explains. "We do it all under one roof — the wood, the steel, and the air our pieces float on. So there’s a connectedness between the materials."

Watch the Video: Tour Birdloft Custom Furniture Studio in Tacoma, Washington

Handmade Hairpins

Glancing back to the design measurements and blueprint, Adrienne prepares five long pieces of cold rolled round bar for bending, cutting and drilling — all of which she will complete in just a few hours by hand.

Watch the Video: Tour Birdloft Custom Furniture Studio in Tacoma, Washington

Woman of Steel

Adrienne positions a steel rod into the bender and, surprisingly, only uses her body strength as leverage to bend each leg into 90 degree angles. "It’s just a cold bending process that gives us the magic of the bookcase," she explains. "[The legs] are like long staples, giant long turns of steel."

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Hip to Be Square

A speed square is tucked into Adrienne's front pocket and quickly placed at each bend to ensure 100% perfection. In total, she will bend one large steel rod and four smaller steel rods all by hand for the open air bookcase.

Watch the Video: Tour Birdloft Custom Furniture Studio in Tacoma, Washington

Sending Sparks

"After [the legs] are bent, they get cut to their real length," Adrienne explains. Often it's easier to use a compact circular saw when working with longer steel rods.

Watch the Video: Tour Birdloft Custom Furniture Studio in Tacoma, Washington

Tough Template

Once the legs are cut and buffed to remove any rough edges, Adrienne uses a hammer and center pin punch to indent each steel rod with a swift whack of force. Spare nails, rulers and pens bounce on the worktable with every swing of the hammer, but these divots are vital to ensuring perfectly drilled holes.

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Slow and Steady

Mostly silent in concentration, Adrienne follows her center pin marks and relies on the cold saw to work its magic along the steel rod. "Instead of whining away at high, hot speeds of near 4,000 rpms," Jeff explains, "this old saw runs along at a mere 88 rpms, slowly chewing its perfect watery path through the steel." Each drilled hole will soon hold cotter pins used to connect the steel leg to the wooden shelf.

Watch the Video: Tour Birdloft Custom Furniture Studio in Tacoma, Washington

Waxing Poetic

Finally, the bent, cut and drilled steel legs get a revitalizing facial. "We’ve tried lots of different things for cleaning [the legs]," Adrienne says. "But I’ve gone to just using a paste wax with a lot of solvent to clean them. That gets all the oily, black gunk off, and [it] also, added bonus, waxes the steel so it gives a little added protection and helps them go together in the bookcase well."

Watch the Video: Tour Birdloft Custom Furniture Studio in Tacoma, Washington

It Takes Two

The last step tests the truth of the build as the two join forces to marry all the handmade pieces together. "We almost always assemble together," Adrienne says. "It's much easier with two," Jeff adds. The Birdloft duo assembles every piece of custom furniture to ensure it looks just right before it's disassembled and lovingly packed into a custom crate — also handmade by Jeff — for its final journey to the client.

Watch the Video: Tour Birdloft Custom Furniture Studio in Tacoma, Washington

Shared Aesthetic

The Birdloft open air bookcase design also reveals a bit about the couple's combined aesthetic. "We just love reclaimed wood and steel together," Jeff says. "The wood, steel and air: those are our three main ingredients. The wood gives our furniture its elemental gravity and warmth; the patina, the drag and heft. And the steel gives it clarity and elegance."

Watch the Video: Tour Birdloft Custom Furniture Studio in Tacoma, Washington

A Thing of Beauty

Made from reclaimed old-growth wood, revived by hand and repurposed with love into a five-shelf, industrial, rustic custom piece, the open air bookcase is finally complete. "The wood by itself is super rugged and elemental and the steel is this industrial, elegant, super-clean thing," Jeff says when describing the finished product. "Each by itself is great. And then you put them together and some magic happens — that’s what makes that bookcase really beautiful — the two together."

Watch the Video: Tour Birdloft Custom Furniture Studio in Tacoma, Washington

Stamp of Approval

Each custom, handcrafted piece by Jeff and Adrienne receives the Birdloft logo with a special branding iron. As the iron sizzles softly on the wood, Jeff shares how the moniker came to be. "The name Birdloft came from a distracted, informal love of birds ... just the way people are like birds, and birds are like people. The way we feather our nests and we create comfortable spaces. The way birds are like architects with their own nests. We feather our nests, and in the cities, we feather our lofts."

Watch the Video: Tour Birdloft Custom Furniture Studio in Tacoma, Washington

The Art of Old-Growth Woodworking With Tacoma's Husband-and-Wife Team

Related To:

Shop This Look

A Never-Say-Never, Woodworking Love Story

Road Trip Revelation

ISO: More Studio Space

Know Your Role(s)

Old-Growth What?

The Wood Library

Special Selections

Measure of a Man

The Waiting Is the Hardest Part

Pacific Northwest Guarantee

Mrs. Sandman

Board Game

Even Flow

Drill Sergeant

Test Drive

Paw Patrol

One Coat Job

Oil vs. Stain

High and Dry

Heavy Metal

Handmade Hairpins

Woman of Steel

Hip to Be Square

Sending Sparks

Tough Template

Slow and Steady

Waxing Poetic

It Takes Two

Shared Aesthetic

A Thing of Beauty

Stamp of Approval

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