In the Shop: San Antonio Library

In the Shop: San Antonio Library

In our shop we recently completed building an entire library for a client in San Antonio. It was carefully designed and handcrafted using hand-carved moldings and solid oak.

All of the carvings on the moldings and entablatures are done by hand; no CNC’s were used in the process. The design and carvings help establish a hierarchy in the room and determine the importance of key entrances. The hand-carved moldings have a depth and richness that can’t be achieved with machines. Quality hand carving is hard to find and hard to achieve.

Another distinguishing feature of this room is that no plywood is used. Instead, all the boxes, shelves, moldings and carvings are made of solid Quarter-sawn White Oak.

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Quarter-sawn White Oak has historically been a premium wood that is especially desirable because of its tight growth marks and distinctive grain pattern that literally sparkles with the right finish. Quarter sawn wood is also more structurally sound and stable. Its stability will allow this room to last for generations.

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Each bookcase features a proprietary lighting system devised by Hull Historical. The lighting is hidden underneath each shelf to spread the light more evenly. This lighting system can even allow for different shades of light to be used on each shelf as needed (notice the top shelf in the photo above is a more yellow color).

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The video below describes the project in more detail and shows the library fully assembled just before it left our shop.

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The book mentioned in the video that helped inspire this library was Moving Rooms by John Harris about the use of architectural salvage in period rooms over the last 200 years. Although the materials used in the featured library are new, our client immediately recognized that like the rooms in the book, this is going to be a room that will last for years to come.