Pecky Cypress, Poplar Shiplap and an Ipe Porch

Wood-paneled living room with a brick fireplace and tall windows on either side
Wood-paneled hallway opening into a bathroom with a patterned tile wall and vanity sink
Close-up of a white wooden shelf corner with visible scratches and a stone base underneath
Close-up of light wood wall panels with dark knots and a white stair rail in a bright hallway
Bright bathroom with white shiplap walls, glass shower, and a freestanding tub by a window.
Bright white hallway alcove with a large window seat and built-in cabinets, lit by recessed ceiling lights.
Bright white built-in shelving beside a window in a sunlit room

Some houses are defined by one material. This one is defined by how many different ones had to work together — and by the fact that nearly all of them came off the same shop floor.


A pecky cypress ceiling


The interior ceiling is pecky cypress, and it is the first thing anyone notices. Pecky cypress carries the irregular pockets left behind by a fungus in the standing tree — harmless in the finished board, and impossible to fake. It gives a ceiling texture and shadow that a flat material never will. Because no two boards are alike, it wants to be laid out with some thought, which is exactly the kind of material we like handling.


Poplar shiplap, solid poplar mouldings, maple plywood


The walls are poplar shiplap with mouldings milled from solid poplar — not finger-jointed, not wrapped. Poplar takes paint beautifully and machines cleanly, which is why it is the standard for painted interior trim done properly. Closets are maple plywood. Small detail, but it is the kind of thing that separates a custom home from a nice one.


Outside: hemlock ceilings, ipe decking, KDAT brackets, cedar shingles


The porch ceilings are vertical grain clear hemlock. The porch decking is ipe — the densest common decking hardwood, hard enough to blunt tools and rated for decades outdoors, which is why it keeps winning on coastal porches. The exterior brackets came out of our own fabrication shop in KDAT: kiln dried after treatment, meaning the lumber is pressure treated and then dried back down, so it goes up stable instead of shrinking and checking on the wall over the first year. Most treated stock skips that second step. On an exposed structural bracket you can see from the street, it is worth insisting on. The walls are SBC cedar shingles.


One supplier, one shop


Pecky cypress, poplar, maple, hemlock, ipe, KDAT and cedar shingles — seven materials, one delivery schedule, one phone number when something needs sorting. That is the part builders tend to appreciate more than the species list.

See what our fabrication shop can build or talk to us about your material list.


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