Yes, it’s getting close, but extra hard toward the end. First on Saturday I freaked out about the Irishman starting work while I was helping my dad fix his car, even though it turned out that everything he did without me was FINE. But I got down there to help/micromanage him for the second half of the day. Then today, more of me being difficult. It was finally time to confirm my second woodwork order, closing out a purchase that I started planning last April. So I should show you, the Tague Lumber place in Malvern is the fanciest lumber yard in the world. Literally.
The fanciest lumberyard in the world
The first was special order woodwork for upstairs that’s slightly fancier than the original. I decided that even though I wanted to be historically accurate, I could handle being just a little bit too fancy.
Downstairs I decided on a stock item that’s slightly plainer than what it’s replacing. Compare these:
Yeah, they’re really close. Really close. But the old trim, aside from being warped, missing chunks, gummed up with bad paint jobs, and not enough there for my new doorways, it’s a little bigger (especially taller) and fancier. And somehow I just like it better.
So today I went into Tague’s online catalog to look up an item number for something practical… and gasped.
There it is. The TL-3166 is my header cap. It’s perfect. I want it. And it’s a special order item. That means that it won’t be arriving on Wednesday with the other woodwork. I’ll be picking it up. In 16 foot lengths. Which just means they’ll have to be cut in half. There’s only gonna be 4 so it’s fine. I also don’t know how much it’s gonna cost yet, except that it will definitely be about double. So if it’s crazy I may have to go back to that pretty nice but not quite perfect TL-35. I mean, the money is flying away fast now. But even if I do go back to it, I’ll be picking it up myself now. But it’s not fun making things easy, is it?
Chad's Crooked House 
Oh I love the old fashioned trim. It gives a plain old doorway a look of a Portal to something lovely. Your house is coming together Chad. Has it begun to feel almost like your child? We have fixed up a lot of old houses in 55 years of marriage and I came to love them all, and to feel that they had a kind of life to them that a brand new house just hadn’t yet acquired.
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and ironically, that trim was put in when the house was modernized 40 years after it was built.
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Wow, too many choices. You really must go in with something in mind or be overwhelmed by the selection. If you weren’t renovating Tague Lumber would be a fun place to go for an afternoon outing (kind of like a museum only better). Jo @ Let’s Face the Music
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Ha it does look like a museum. But it’s better to go there when you are buying things. The saleswoman walked around with me. Those wooden panels open and they have woodwork samples to take home stored behind them.
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Love things to take home. May need a road trip from Maryland. Jo
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If you do that I’d have a few places to point you to.
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I know what you mean, Chad. You just want to get it right, because you are never going to replace that woodwork again. We paid more than double for cove moulding to finish off the top of a built-in bookcase because it matched the 1950s moulding in the rest of the house. And your lumberyard may not be the fanciest in the world. Rings’ End Lumber (various locations throughout Connecticut) will give it a run for its money.
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haha! Yes I know the parts of Connecticut that are connected to Grand Central Station probably have levels of fanciness that this Philly bumpkin has never seen. But then, this is Tague’s outpost on the Main Line, and definitely its fanciest.
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