Lapland inspirations

My stay in Lapland, building log cabins from 'kelo' pine logs was inspiring. 24 hour sun, nature struggling to survive and adapting, quiet, emptiness. Magnificent.

Not often you have to beware of reindeer on a building site!

Blazing hot day and a faceful of sawdust. Heaven! Below, Osmo holds court at lunch.

I love working with the Kelo pine, it's actually dead wood, dry and filled with pitch, easy to work except for cracks. The pine tree grows in a spiral. The beautiful silver-grey colour comes from the fact that the pine tree dies,but stays standing, maybe for 50 years or more. The bark falls off and the wood surface weathers. The tree does not rot because lapland is a dry climate with very short growing seasons. Also it is not a windy place, so the trees stand like old fingers scraping at the sky.

I tried to make some kelo furniture which would fit into a modern home, so I reversed the wood, making a nice clean pale finish on the outside, and kept the natural surface inside, and making a little window into nature just using a 'puukko', a traditional Finnish hand-made knife, carbon steel, deadly sharp.

Raw materials:

Of course I had to have a go at chainsaw sculpting. I finished these with a sanding wheel on an angle grinder. I was especially please with the wolf cub.

And the finished article, with features, grey preserving wax and a home in the garden.

Water features

Finnish slate and granite are wonderful for water features. Here are two I did for my family members. Not a lot of carpentry involved, but plenty of creativity. The whole structure is built on large blocks of carved expanded polystyrene. The stones are fixed with, well I won't tell all my secrets!

The first one was massive, several tonnes of slate and a 2m drop, so the next one was an excercise in miniature, a trickling stream rather than a mountain torrent.  I found the beautiful 'strutsin muna' (ostrich egg) on a beach. I had hunted for a nice round stone for days, and finally found a beauty. Thank you to the ice-age! I drilled it and fitted the pump underneath. The pump has two pipes, the other one to the head of the little stream.

Chessboard coffee table / Shakkilauta kahvipöytä

Chessboard coffee table. Red oak / Punatammi block board, which I made from scrap pieces. Actually, because our paequet floor is English oak I waxed the table with several colour layers to make it look likw English oak, which suceeded well. The chessboard is of marble / marmori, coated with Epoxy resin. If I were to make it again I would leave the chessboard uncoated, because the resin has yellowed considerably in 5 years The close up on left shows the colour as it was originally! (little bit of Photoshop retouching) whilst the image above is how it looks today.

Bookcase and window seat / Kirjahylly ja istumapaikka

This is one one my favourite pieces, I had to build a book case and a matching window seat, in a Gothic style, as the house was built with a lot of Victorian Gothic features. I visited some old churches for inspiration, and came up with this design. It is made in chestnut / kastanja, a much underused, beautiful wood that looks very much like oak but is much easier to work

Oak and panel washroom / Tammi ja paneli WC

In the same house as the marble bathroom I created this washroom, with the same oak profiles and glazed panelling. The sink is again an old one from an architechtural salvage yard.

Marble oak bathroom / Marmori tammi kylpyhuone

An oak floor, hand made oak profiles and painted panelling, and Carrera marble tiles, this was quite a special case! The sink is French antique, and the bath an old cast iron one which was re-coated. The final effect was very special indeed. There was one very memorable event when I was making this bathroom. There was a terrible thunderstorm outside, and the house was hit by lightning. The power went out for about 3 seconds, and then came on again. At the same time the air in the house ionised; I felt my flesh tingle, and my hair stood on end, literally!

2 doors into one / Yhdistin 2 ovia

One of the most demanding tasks I have ever done, even 25 years later. An outside door, it was originally 2 doors opening in the middle. The bottom runners was rotten, so I had to more or less hand carve a new single one from mahogany. The the doors to be joined in the middle (without breaking the lead light glass), filling painting and so on. I wonder how it has survived the years?

Linen cupboard / Liinavaatekaappi

A 1950's Linen cupboard / Liinavaatekaappi rescued from a skip / roskalava and given a new life with a stencilled paint job. The stencil design is my own, seaweed and marine.

       

Book case / Kirjahylly

We needed a huge bookcase for all our books, and this was the result. Made from basic spruce / kuusi boards and hand made profiles / listat, it was painted many times, to give a patinated look to it. Now we need another one!

Tree house / Leikkimökki

The only surviving picture of a splendid tree house made for 2 young boys, replete with ramparts, lookout tower, secret trapdoor entrance and shuttered gun ports! It was built entirely from scrap wood, and rest upon a large Pine tree stump, thereby earning the title tree house. It was so large that the neighbours complained, and then the customer had to employ an architect to make drawings and apply for planning permission! It probably cost far more than he paid me to do it.

Sideboard with rag roll paint effect / Lipasto

It's amazing what you can do; this sideboard was made from cheap imported plywood and some readily available profiles from the nearest builder's merchant. Glued and screwed, and then painted with primer and basecoat. after that I used a chamois leather, and a slightly darker shade of paint, not speciality paints, just silk finish oil paints from the same builder's merchant. The end result was remarkable sophisticated. Note that in those days (the 80's) you had no powerful and accurate electric crosscut saws, just a good old mechanical mitre saw! In fact the drill you see on the ground in the first shot was probably the only power tool I had at that time! You can also see the rag-rolling in progress in the second shot.

Travel crate /Matka-arkku

A 1940s? travel crate owned by a ship's captain. I renovated it a made it suitable for indoor spaces with some sanding and matt laquer. The labels are original, but some of them I steamed off an equally old suitcase and stuck them to the crate.

Antique rose painted box / Arkku ja ruusu maalaus

I found this very fine pine box with brass handles in a second hand shop, and decided to give it an equally fine paint job. Pink roses and foliage, and then I patinated it heavily before varnishing and waxing, to give a real feel of antiquity.

Sauna suite / Saunaosasto

In 2010 I did a major remodelling of a Saunasuite/Saunosasto in Tammisalo. The panels were specially ordered 120mm Common Alder/Tervaleppä. We used Italian tiles, and Slate/Luiskekivi strip wall covering from China.