This home is located in Bellevue, Washington’s Bridle Trails, a classic mid-century modern neighborhood. For some time, the owners were looking to find a carpentry service or woodshop that could replicate the original interior millwork valences. They finally found Westbrook and brought over the original components of a valence to the shop for me to look at. It was determined that it would be best to rebuild from scratch rather than try to repair. So, that’s what we did. The joinery is not as easy as it appears in the photos, and needed to line up with the dividers between two windows, intersect with an out of square inside corner, and line up with a mid-wall belly band that continues at the same height as the valence. All material is a vertical grain fir that is a full 1.5” thickness and 16 feet long. The bracket supports were inset with a dado, and 45 degree cut corner. It was all screwed and sanded to a 200 grit. Once done, the owner asked if Westbrook could do the install. They couldn’t find anyone that could perform that, so I did it.

This project a great example of why working with Westbrook is an advantage. It’s the woodshop component and personalized one on one service that makes all the difference.