December 21, 2005
Milliken stage undergoes floor transformation
15-year-old pine stage floor replaced by hard as steel Brazilian Cumaru wood
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
As the year end approaches, it's out with the old and in with the new at the Milliken Auditorium.
By Saturday, January 7, the scarred, 15-year-old stage floor will have been replaced with gleaming new Brazilian Cumaru wood, a hard, dense-grained wood known for durability.
Monday, a crew from Kamarca in Traverse City ripped up the old pine tongue-and-groove floor and began preparing the sub-floor for the three-week installation process.
"[The old floor] was pine, a very soft wood so the abuse was pretty extensive after years of music stands and chairs being dragged across it," said Paul Griggs, co-owner of Kamarca, of the old floor.
"You've heard of the saying, 'This is as hard as oak?' Cumaru is steel," he added.
Griggs and his crew will set up a miniature shop on site to replace the 1,500 square feet of flooring. They are using 3 ½-inch wide Cumaru boards, which are wider than typical wood flooring. Rare Earth Hardwoods procured the wood for the job and are providing it to the museum at cost.
Another facet that will keep the project affordable for the college: Kamarca is donating a portion of their labor to honor a shared artistic purpose.
"This museum and what it promotes is art in our local community and as a company, that's what we want to promote," noted Griggs.
The new floor is part of an ongoing maintenance program at the Northwestern Michigan College facility, which was built in 1991. For years, the college had the floor sanded smooth periodically but it was time for the next step, said Gene Jenneman, director of the Dennos Museum
"Over time, you can only sand a floor so much before you have to refinish it," he noted. "We are at the point where it was time. We might have gotten by with one more refinish, but with the nature of tongue and groove you can only sand it so much before the tongues don't stay together anymore."
Part of the challenge of putting in the new floor was carving out a chunk of time in the busy auditorium's schedule for the work. Both college and local musical, choral, dance, theater and other arts groups book the auditorium for performances year round.
Working through the holiday season, members of the Kamarca crew will complete the installation by a firm deadline of January 6. Jazz and blues pianist Monty Alexander will perform the next evening on the stage.
"It is in high demand, it's a great space as everybody in the community knows," added Jenneman of the Milliken. "It is a community asset that is used a lot and benefits the community so this is just part of the ongoing upgrades."
Paul Griggs, Eric Liggett and Josh Baldwin founded Kamarca three and a half years ago and have imbued the company with an artisan flavor. While their main focus has been residential floors, the group recently installed the new maple floor in the City Opera House. That 5,500-square foot job was a huge undertaking and the Kamarca crew stained each piece as part of the finishing process.
For the Milliken Auditorium, the light-colored wood - chosen in part because the grain and color nearly match the extensive oak trim in the facility - will not be stained. Instead, workers will complete a multi-step finishing process: rough sanding, edging, buffing and finishing with an oil polyurethane.
Replacing a stage used for performing differs in one key respect from their previous residential work as well as the City Opera House job.
"One peculiar thing that you wouldn't normally find in a home is that this has a suspended sub-floor," said Griggs of the professional caliber facility. "It's actually on shocks."