Since we had our new kitchen fitted just over a month ago, I am now considering projects around the rest of our home. At present, the house resembles something like the proverbial tip. It is an old, terraced house, built in the late 1890s, and it is inhabited by one hoarder, one book-lover (and associated hoard), two young children, one daft dog, and two pet turtles. All within a rather confined space, slowly disappearing beneath a mountain of toys, books and papers.

It is time to sort this out. While we accept that we are now growing out of our house, we don’t want to move. This is our home, and it deserves some loving attention. We want to strip much of it back to how it might have looked in years past (aside from the modern kitchen and bathroom, of course). My husband and I would love to incorporate original open fireplaces in the living room and dining room. We still have the chimneys in place. They simply need opening up and adorning with a proper mantle again. I would love some traditional oak flooring to replace our horrendously damaged and dirty old carpets. And, could we strip out all that ugly old wallpaper, and put in a few decorative oak beams somewhere?

I love old houses with lots of features like that. I love running my hands over an old, oak beam to feel the marks of age. They hold many precious memories. They have been through lots of troubling times, and lots of good times, during their tenure in homes and public buildings. To bring some of that history into our home would be fantastic. I also like the idea of using reclaimed oak beams as decorative features, structural features, or cutting them down into shelves, storage units and seating in a home renovation project. There are so many materials to be rediscovered in abandoned buildings and barns, and we simply cannot let them go to waste.

Have you used oak beams in your home décor? Would you consider using them?

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