In 2010, Central City Millworks submitted a bid for the renovation of a New Orleans restaurant at the corner of St. Charles and Napoleon Avenues, and was subsequently awarded the contract. The location had previously been the site of a Copeland’s Restaurant for many years.

Central City Millworks was tasked with taking the architect’s concept drawings and transforming them into reality while maintaining the intended design aesthetic and keeping the project within the owner’s budget. The design was inspired by a Paris bistro that the owner discovered and immediately fell in love with the ambiance. That experience resulted in a commitment to recreate that venue for New Orleanians and city visitors to enjoy. CCM duplicated the style and many of the details of the bistro from the owner’s photographs.

The name of the new restaurant is Superior Seafood, and it is owned by the same company that owns and operates Superior Grill on St. Charles Avenue near Touro Hospital. This will be their second dining location in New Orleans, and will be the more upscale of the two restaurants and specializing in Gulf seafood.

To date, Central City Millworks has completed fabrication of all of the exterior and interior millwork using African mahogany (Sapele), a very stable wood that is resistant to termites and rot. All of the exterior millwork (doors, windows, exterior trim, and raised panel walls) has been fabricated and installed on-site, and CCM is in the process of completing the interior on-site installation.

A list of the millwork that we have fabricated and installed (or in the process of installing) includes:

• Exterior single hung windows
• Exterior glass panels
• Exterior raised panels
• Side vestibule entry
• Handicap entry door and sidelights
• Entry door with curved transom
• All interior wainscoting
• Main bar (with raised panels including one curved raised panel)
• Main bar pilasters (with CNC intricately carved cameos)
• Main bar back base cabinets
• Main bar back display cabinets (with pilasters)
• Oyster bar (with raised panels including two curved raise panels)
• Oyster bar pilasters (with CNC intricately carved cameos)
• Oyster bar back
• Booth divider walls (with curved glass panels over paneled wainscot with cap rail)
• Bathroom stalls
• All interior custom wood doors with transoms.

Central City Millworks is in the final phase of a project that we have worked on for a year. Every separate item listed above has its own story, and the stories of those different components may be appended as this job nears completion.

Daniel Bell holds a template ordered by Blade Dynamics

From Wikipedia, CNC wood router:

The CNC router works like a printer. Work is composed on a computer and then the design or drawing is sent to the CNC router for the hard copy. This outputs a 3-dimensional copy of the work. The CNC router uses a cutting tool instead of an ink jet. The cutting tool is generally a router but other cutters can be used as well.

Geynor Arroliga, CNC Operater for CCM

CNC router with templates cut out

This summer Central City Millworks was contacted by a couple from Lowell, Arkansas who were building their dream home on a beautiful wooded lot. The wife graduated from medical school in New Orleans, and had fallen in love with the city, especially the architecture. When she was in school, she had lived in a house that had historic New Orleans slip-head windows. This style of window was common in homes built in the deep south and especially in plantation style houses.

CCM fabricated slip-head windows

We combine the best of historic designs with the best designs of modern technology

For historic-styled custom windows, we use a special polypropylene-covered foam weatherstripping that is embedded in the sash of the window. When the window is operated, it actually glides on a cushion of polypropylene. This detail virtually eliminates drafts coming around the sides of the moving sash. We use another polypropylene weatherstripping at the lock rail and at the bottom of the sash to almost completely eliminate air intrusion. By the time the group left, they had ordered all of their windows and all of their exterior doors from Central City Millworks.

While walking around our workshop, they were particularly delighted with some curved top windows they saw being fabricated for another client. Since their home’s design called for all of their gable windows to have curved top sashes, they ordered all of their gable windows from us as well.

All the custom windows and custom doors were fabricated for exterior durability by using Spanish Cedar hardwood. Spanish Cedar hardwood is the best available wood for exterior durability due to its structural stability and resistance to rot from exposure to moisture. Having been used extensively in the soggy environs of New Orleans, this wood is an excellent choice for anywhere in the country.

Newly fabricated New Orleans style custom windows await shipment to their new home in Arkansas

From Historic District Landmarks Commission of the City of New Orleans:

Slip-head windows serve the same purpose as triple-hung windows and supercede them. The distinguishing characteristic is a pocket in the head section of the frame into which part of the sash could slip. This allowed the check rail to be located above the midpoint of the opening so that when the lower sash was in the fully raised position, people could walk through the opening. Without the slip-head feature, an opening would have to be twice as high as the height needed for clear passage.

Central City Millworks was subcontracted by The McDonnel Group, a Louisiana based general contractor located in Metairie, LA, to provide all of the millwork to repair several water damaged areas of the exterior trim of a prominent historic house on St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans.

The first area of the house that we worked was the Porte Cochere (a roofed structure extending from the side or front entrance of a home over an adjacent driveway to shelter those entering or exiting a vehicle). The original scope of work was to repair molding around the perimeter of the Porte Cochere ceiling. But once the demolition of the damaged crown molding began, it became apparent that the damage was much more extensive. Upon opening the existing ceiling we exposed severe structural damage that dangerously compromised the floor system. In fact it is amazing that the floor system had not catastrophically failed since the room above was being used for a weight/exercise room.

Once we discovered the moisture and termite damage, we contacted the contractor, and he had the structural engineer, Michael Bailey with Avegno, Bailey and Associates, develop a plan to correct the damage. His solution was to replace the damaged pine wood joists with structural LVL’s (Laminated Veneer Lumber, a high strength engineered wood product), attached to a perimeter band of pressure-treated 2 x 12′s. The band was to be attached to the masonry structure with anchor bolts set in epoxy. The pressure-treated band was further protected from future moisture damage by isolating it with a heavy vinyl barrier (essentially a vinyl shower pan material). The LVL’s were attached to the band with Simpson joist hangers.

Central City Millworks is molding, fabricating, and priming all exterior trim material to match the old historic trim to complete this work. Hal Collums Construction in New Orleans is doing all the install work for Central City Millworks.

Source: Wikipedia – Laminated veneer lumber (LVL) is an engineered wood product that uses multiple layers of thin wood assembled with adhesives. It offers several advantages over typical milled lumber: it is stronger, straighter, and more uniform. It is much less likely than conventional lumber to warp, twist, bow, or shrink due to its composite nature. Made in a factory under controlled specifications, LVL products allow users to reduce the onsite labor. They are typically used for headers, beams, rimboard, and edge-forming material.

When a local contractor contacted Central City Millworks about replicating existing casework as part of a hotel renovation, we knew that our CNC router would allow us to replicate the radius parts without any trouble.

Once correctly programmed by our CNC (Computer Numerical Control) programmer, Daniel Bell, the CNC router can cut each casework piece as a clone with exact precision. This technological advantage provides highly accurate production with significant time and cost savings.

As a result of our automated processes, local contractors choose Central City Millworks to fabricate items that would otherwise be technically difficult to produce or items in quantity that would otherwise be time intensive to produce.

While CCM is popular with local contractors, we regularly work with individual homeowners on their smaller projects. So, whether you are a local contractor or a homeowner…

Contact us today about replicating your existing millwork, or bring us your own design that we can help you create!

Central City Millworks provided “dirty” (rustic) custom heart pine flooring and casework for Merchant, a New Orleans wine bar and coffee shop located in the CBD.

When Ammar Eloueini of AEDS (Ammar Eloueini Digit-all Studio) and Edifice Builders came to Central City Millworks for help implementing  a design concept for the Merchant cafe that  focused on “dirty” top pine flooring and casework cladding, we knew that we were the perfect company for the job. And, finishing an interior space with the exterior “dirty” face of our reclaimed pine was an exciting prospect.

CCM’s reclaimed flooring department produces high quality heart pine flooring in grades varying from a premium grade quarter-sawn red, to a rustic antique yellow.

For Central City Millworks, it is not only an environmental but also a financial imperative to get the most use out of our reclaimed products. We pride ourselves in finding use for as much of the waste products of our operation as possible (saw dust, rippings, beam skins).

The black melamine casework designed by AEDS was cut with CCM’s CNC router to insure optimum material use and precision construction. The cabinets, once assembled, were clad in “dirty” top pine provided by our flooring department. The material was surfaced to thickness and jointed for a clean application in the field. The result pictured above accomplishes the juxtaposition of clean straight lines with a “dirty” rustic finish.

As a final touch, CCM fabricated a table and benches for the interior of the restaurant with the same materials.

(Quote and photo below from an article at NewOrleans.com)

“Coffee, crepes, grapes” is the tagline for Merchant, a new café in the ground floor of The Maritime building in the Central Business District. Merchant will serve beer and wine by the glass, quartino (quarter bottle), and bottle soon, but coffee may be the real star here.

Merchant is now open for business

As mentioned in a previous post, Central City Millworks was contracted by the New Orleans Preservation Resource Center to fabricate windows as part of a historic preservation project. The windows were to come from the remains of a neighborhood store at 5200 Dauphine Street in the 9th Ward of New Orleans.

Photos in this post show some of the window jambs and casings that have been fabricated in our mill shop from the structural members of historic heart pine wood salvaged from the building after it was deconstructed.

Each piece of wood salvaged from the building had been sorted, cataloged, and stacked. The photo to the right shows one such stack of wood that was transformed into windows to be installed in a new neighborhood center built, in part, out of the remains of the store.

The selected salvaged wood was resawn, planed, milled, machined, and assembled in the CCM shop prior to being sent to join the sashes that were being prepared in the NOPRC wood shop with the assistance of volunteers.

The photo below shows a completed window frame ready to ship to the NOPRC.

Central City Millworks was contracted to provide heart pine flooring as part of the renovation of buildings at Jackson Barracks, located in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans.

The Barracks, established in 1834, served as a military base as well as the home of the Louisiana National Guard. But during Hurricane Katrina the base was severely damaged when Federal levees failed and flood waters filled buildings, destroyed equipment, and challenged the personnel stationed there with their survival.

CCM was selected for this flooring project because our millwork shop had the source for the salvaged heart pine, and because we have the capability to store, handle, de-nail, cut, and mill it to match the original historic wood flooring that needed to be replaced.

Heart pine flooring sawn in the CCM millwork shop

Heart pine flooring in New Orleans millwork shop ready for install

Renovation in New Orleans frequently means replacing patches of damaged wood flooring or a few windows or adding a new custom door or two. In those cases, Central City Millworks is often contracted to meet the challenge of matching the new with the old. The photo below represents just one example of our company’s ability to meet such challenges.

The historic renovation of the building at 612 Royal Street in the French Quarter, by Hal Collums Construction, required just such skill. The building, once the French Consulate with an elegantly finished interior, was being restored to its glory as a private residence. The addition of built-in closets in the bedrooms called for the fabrication of custom louvered closet doors that perfectly matched the existing cypress bedroom doors.

Mission accomplished. The new louvered closet doors in the center of the photo below are a perfect match for the existing cypress bedroom doors on either side.

Ursuline Convent awaiting its new storm shutters

A local contractor enlisted Central City Millworks to build custom shutters as part of the historic preservation of Ursuline Convent in New Orleans.

The original shutter rails and stiles (the frame in which the shutter louvers are inset) were made only 1″ thick as opposed to 1 3/8″ to 1 3/4″ thick on typical New Orleans shutters.

In duplicating this design, we inset the louvers into the frame with a molded inner frame that gives the louvers a wide face in which to be mounted. This inner frame is 2 1/2″ wide, and gives the frame a much thicker appearance.

The original craftsmen created a beautifully designed piece of utilitarian art, and the craftsmen at Central City Millworks were delighted to have the opportunity to replicate that craftsmanship.

The attention to detail that our artisan, Carlos, employed to accomplish this reproduction of a classic shutter is evident in the photo to the right. This high level of craftsmanship is appropriate for a historic renovation of the oldest building in the Mississippi Valley.

This Convent was originally built for the Sisters of Ursula, and was completed around 1752. It is the only building of the original colony still standing as a result of a 1788 fire that burned down hundreds of other structures and threatened the Convent. It was during this devastating event that the legend of the city’s patroness, Our Lady of Prompt Succor, was born.

As the flames approached the convent, Sister St. Anthony, one of the old nuns, climbed the convent stairs with a small statue of Our Lady in hand. She knelt and prayed with full confidence. At that very instant the wind veered and the flames were blown back, and so this great building is still with us today to have its legacy, and shutters, maintained.

Custom-made storm shutters await installation on New Orleans' Ursuline Convent