Buildings
About
While every historic house that we design a shed for is unique, some places have an exceptional story that sets them apart from the rest. This is true of a property settled in the 1880s Florida wilderness where we installed a 12'x14' shed in November that will serve as archives storage. The site is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The house is located in what was founded as the the town of Limona in 1876 by Joseph Gillette Knapp, a retired judge from Wisconsin. Knapp actively promoted the area and soon convinced E. E. Pratt of the Illinois-based Elgin Watch Company to settle in Limona and to establish a retirement community for employees. Among the Illinois settlers was a talented watch maker, Charles Scott Moseley, his artist wife Julia Moseley, and their young children. Arriving in 1883, the Moseleys at first moved into a cabin that already existed on the lake-front property, but after a fire in 1885, they built the current house. Designed around a central porch to capture breezes on all sides, the house remains largely unaltered since initial construction. A well, bathhouse, shed and a two-story outbuilding constructed in the 1920s are also located on the site.
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| The main house |
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| A still-functioning well |
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| A storage shed with the bathhouse visible to the right |
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| The two-story carport/ studio |
The current owner, a direct descendant of Scott and Julia Moseley, has an extensive collection of letters written by Julia to her husband during his frequent business trips describing life in the Florida wilderness, along with photographs, artwork and other artifacts from early Florida life. The archives shed was designed to store these items in a climate controlled environment as well as provide a work space for visiting scholars. Historic Shed was hired to design and build the shed in a manner that would complement the existing historic site.
Built on tapered concrete piers to match the main house foundation, the shed incorporates cypress board and batten siding, exposed rafter tails, a custom dutch door and gable-end lattice details drawn from the various buildings on the property. Salvaged historic windows for the shed were provided by the owner and still have all their wavy glass panes. The windows are protected by batten shutters which can be fastened during storms to protect the fragile collection. The interior was finished with plywood walls, a pecky cypress ceiling, and cypress flooring. Cypress shelves and a desk constructed out of large cypress planks provided by the owner provide workspace for historians. The shed was insulated with open cell foam and a split mini system air conditioning system provides climate control. The paint scheme was used on the other historic outbuildings originally, using Julia Moseley's favorite colors.
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| Wood shake roof |
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| Cypress dutch door that mimics one on the main house |
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| Batten shutters for storm protection and shading the interior from direct light |
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| Salvaged historic wood windows |
| Desk constructed of cypress planks provided by the owner |
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| Pecky cypress ceiling with shellac finish |
We recently completed a project for a great customer who had saved a variety of cypress boards that she wanted incorporated in her new home office shed. We used the wide cypress planks to build the desk and shelves, and installed the random width pecky cypress on the ceiling of the 12'x14' shed. Pecky cypress is created when a tree is attacked by fungus, resulting in lens-shaped pockets throughout the wood. Studies have not revealed the exact origin of the fungus or why it attacks only certain trees. The resulting boards have a unique texture that creates a rustic but elegant look.
At the owner's request, we coated the cypress with shellac which brought out the grain of the wood, giving it a richer finish. While we have used shellac on other projects, this was our first opportunity to use the product in one of our sheds and we couldn't be more pleased with the results (and the customer was pretty happy too).
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| You can see the difference the shellac makes on the raw wood in one coat |
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| The finished ceiling |
Shellac is a natural, organic resin that is secreted by the small Lac bug (Laccifera lacca). This bug lives on certain trees indigenous to India and Thailand, feeding on the sap that it sucks from the twigs of these trees. The bug creates an amber colored resinous substance that forms a cocoon to incubate the eggs she lays. This cocoon is the raw material for shellac and is called "sticklac", because it contains resin, parts of the twig and bug remains. The sticklac is washed and then refined either chemically or by hand, to produce the raw material available for sale to commerce. The raw material consists of dry flakes that are then dissolved in denatured alcohol. Once dissolved, the liquid shellac has a limited shelf life.
Shellac was the preferred wood finish for wood floors, and wood paneling up to the mid 20th century. It comes in many warm colours, ranging from a very light blond ("platina") to a very dark brown ("garnet"), with all shades of brown and yellow and orange and red in between. The colour is influenced by the sap of the tree the lac bug is living on, as well as the time of harvest. Historically, the most commonly-sold shellac is called "orange shellac", and was used extensively as a combination stain and protectant.
An interesting feature of shellac is that it resists water-vapor very well. In tests done by the United States Forest Products Laboratory on the moisture-excluding effectiveness of wood finishes (the ability of a finish to prevent moisture vapor from entering the cellular structure of the wood – called MEE), shellac rated above polyurethane, alkyd and phenolic varnish and cellulose-nitrate based lacquers.
Some facts on shellac: