One of the Marvelous Woodworking team’s specialties is working in older homes and adapting to the quirks and challenges of bygone architecture and details. A couple in the Fort Benjamin Harrison area have been clients of ours for four years. Jeanne and Scott live in a 1904 historic home that was once part of the old military base. “After that much time of wear and tear,” said Jeanne, “nothing is square or perfect anymore. It’s very hard working in older houses, but we call Doug and his team because they have the ability to make everything look perfect, like it’s always been there.” We’ve completed many projects in their historic home:
Marvelous Woodworking created a custom built-in cabinet with bookshelves and a space for the TV and its electronic components in the home’s garden level. “The cabinet is basically a smaller version of what I had in my old house,” Jeanne said. “We used to live in Zionsville in a home three times as big. I wanted to carry the look of the old house to our new home, even though it was much smaller in scale. Doug looked at the cabinet in the old house and built another one, scaled-down, with the same look and feel. I just had to tell him what I liked, and he knew how to recreate it.”
The mini-kitchen Marvelous Woodworking built was also on Jeanne’s garden level, and was crafted to match the custom built-in cabinet’s style and look. The mini-kitchen includes a wine refrigerator, sink, microwave and under-cabinet lighting. “I like to design things myself,” said Jeanne, “and Doug can take and run with what you come up with. I drew the mini- kitchen and he just built it perfectly.”
In Jeanne and Scott’s main kitchen, we added a custom wine rack to the end of the cabinets. “The point of that wine rack is to make the end of the kitchen cabinets interesting,” said Jeanne. “Because it’s an open kitchen, I wanted something better-looking than just the flat, boring end of a cabinet. Doug co-designed the wine rack with me, basing it off our old one.”
The wine rack and fireplace are in the same room visually, and when the fireplace was being redone, Jeanne saw an opportunity to bring in Doug to create a high-quality mantel to complement the wine rack. “When we tiled our fireplace area, we knew we wanted a unique, natural wood finish mantel. Doug is a furniture maker and knows wood—he picks the right piece with the right grains and can treat it until you get exactly the level of finish you want.” The mantel is mahogany; it has been oiled and buffed around seven times to bring out the wood’s gorgeous natural colors. By creating the wine rack top and mantel piece from mahogany with similar finishes, we added a subtle detail that helps tie the vast room together.
Jeanne also had us make and install white crown moldings all around their ceilings to create a highly-detailed, artistic look throughout their house. “In our previous home, we had crown moldings as well, and I loved the character it brought to my rooms,” said Jeanne. “Here we have12-foot ceilings, which are fairly high, and with that height a room practically needs crown moldings in order to look polished. They really give our home a finished look.”
“We are still adding to our home here in Fort Ben,” said Jeanne. “Right now, we’ve got Marvelous Woodworking on an outside project. We know their work is going to be absolutely beautiful, but also structurally sound, sturdy and safe.”
We at Marvelous Woodworking love working closely with our clients to create their perfect custom project, in both historic homes and newer ones. Call us at (317)679-5890 or send us an email and we will schedule a free consultation with you.
