Whether you are building a new home or remodeling, you can never have too much storage. You could buy furniture specifically designed for storage (china cabinets, dressers) but then you would have that much more to dust and vacuum around … and besides, you may not have room for more furniture.

Or, you could install “built-ins” which stay with the house and increase its resale value. Design as much storage as possible into your remodeling project or new home. Custom built-ins can be economical, attractive, functional and best of all, make your life easier.

Well designed built-ins can provide convenient storage in every room and contain clutter. Built-ins make small rooms seem larger and more open because they are attached to the walls and take up less floor space.

Instead of a wall between rooms, consider a partition with built-in storage and display shelves as in the photo, left. Tim and Tracy built the glass-door cases to separate the entry foyer from the living room while preserving the openness of the large room.

Custom built-ins can fit an oddly shaped corner or a closet you want to open up. Your furniture may be arranged around the focal point of a fireplace (above and left) yet you want to be able to watch movies without rearranging. Solve this dilemma with a built in media center flanking the fireplace. Combine the media cabinets with display shelves for a beautiful and functional living room focal point. The media center cabinets hide the television and any other clutter when not in use.

You’ll need plenty of built-in storage in a craft room, often located near the kitchen or in the laundry room or garage. No matter what your craft or hobby (sewing, woodworking, scrapbooking, etc) you can get customized drawer and cabinet inserts to fit your supplies and tools perfectly. Consider the benefits of being that organized!

Other possible built-ins to consider for your home are a bedroom storage wall or built-in dressers, window seat benches that double as storage with recessed bookcases on the sides, a bookcase wall with media center, mud room storage benches and wall-hung cubbies, wardrobes to organize your closets, a snack bar, wet bar or coffee bar in the family room, a dining booth and a built-in desk near the kitchen (left,) a craft room storage wall with workbench, drawers and display cases, bookshelves under the stairway, dining room wall hutch or display niches for art, recessed between wall studs.

This custom built dining room hutch (left) by Timothy’s Fine Woodworking, leaves plenty of room to expand the table for large dinner parties. The hutch has in-cabinet lights to highlight the china collection as well as lots of practical storage.

There are almost endless possibilities for making more effective use of the space in your home by adding built-ins. Take advantage of the numerous cabinetmakers and woodworkers in your city or town, who can customize your home with built-in furniture, storage cabinets and display shelves. To find a woodworker who can work with you on custom built-ins, start with your local phone directory listings under “Cabinets” or “Furniture Designers & Custom Builders.”

Tim J Carney

Saint Paul’s Church in Helena has recently dedicated their new church home after many years of work and fundraising for this ambitious building project. Years ago I served on the building planning committee, when we had to make the difficult decision to cut down the old birch tree near Susanna’s Place because it was in the way. We could have sited the church building a little differently, or designed it to fit around the birch, but we knew the tree was diseased and dying anyway … it’s life was close to an end and we’d be damaging the root zone so much that the weakened tree would not survive construction.

The birch was infested with birch borers — beetles and larvae. These are the same insects that are killing birch trees all over Helena and other parts of the west. When a birch or aspen is infected with borers, the tree starts dying from the top down and many people don’t notice their beautiful trees are slowly dying because they don’t look at the top branches. By the time we notice the problem, it’s often too late to save the tree. The borers are always present in our ecosystem. But when trees such as birch or aspen are stressed by many years of drought, they cannot flush out the borer larvae with a healthy flow of sap. That allows the borers to set up housekeeping and do their damage to the trees. Montana has had 8 years of severe drought. Our town’s birch trees are in grave danger unless we get more rain or water them adequately.

I write this to give you some background into why the old birch was removed when church construction began. Many church members were saddened by it’s demise. The decision to cut the birch was made easier when we thought of planking up the wood from the tree and using it in the new church building. Tim Carney has had the birch wood drying and aging in his shop for about two years. He recently finished making a beautiful table for St. Paul’s which will be used to hold the book of memorials in the new lobby.

Have you ever heard of the idea of the Wounded Healer?” Who would you turn to in a time of crisis when you need true empathy? I turn to those I know have experienced something like what I am faced with. Someone who has grappled with — and survived — the difficulties of life. Someone who is, who has been, wounded themselves. Wounded by cancer, aids, depression, alcoholism, societal prejudice, a broken heart or the loss of a loved one. A therapist who has suffered from depression knows the way depression feels — and not just from book learning. A healer who has suffered from crippling arthritis might have the greatest empathy for a patient’s struggle with pain. Recovering alcoholics are often the best folks to come to the aid of fellow alcoholics. They know the game. They know the wounds. Someone who has lost a child may be able to give the greatest comfort to parents of a stillborn baby.

So what does this have to do with a birch tree and a table?

As he worked on the table, Tim realized that he was working not only with wood planks, but also with the spirit of the diseased birch tree … and he intuitively used a poetic metaphor of how being wounded, being frail, being damaged and making mistakes can make us beautiful. And strong. It’s not the only way to transform yourself — but it is one way.

At first glance, the wood planks appeared ordinary, nothing to write home about. In fact, the wood was punky and full of rot. Tim wasn’t even sure he could salvage enough from the entire tree to make one small table. One night he came home from the shop full of excitement telling me the wood turned out to be beautiful — and it was most beautiful where the tree had been “hurt” by the insects and fungus. He chose the birch planks with care, noticing where the tree had been tunneled by borers. In those weak spots, fungus had invaded, giving the wood grain a rich, dark gleam. If not for the damage, these birch wood planks would be unremarkable.

Tim had found a way to create something of great beauty from an old tree’s wounds and “ugly” parts. If we don’t die from our illnesses … we are often made stronger … and in some ways, more beautiful. We come back to our lives and our communities filled with a renewed sense of the preciousness of life. Our spirits have more depth, more dimension. We have gone through the fire, through sickness and trouble … we have come through to the other side where our wholeness contains our wounds, our “ugly” parts, our shadow selves.

Once there was a venerable birch tree that caused much agony when a community had to choose: whether to save it or cut it. This old tree has come full circle and is back “home” with a message of hope, beauty and acceptance. It will stand in the church lobby supporting the names of those who have died, along with the names of those left behind. Like the wounded tree transformed by love and skill and vision into an object of usefulness and beauty, our own flaws can be transformed into empathy and compassion and solidarity.

written by Maureen Shaughnessy

A good article in Natural Home and Garden with comparisons on some of the greener countertop options available … is here.