Hi, all - My husband and I are building a house and were given an old ceiling beam from an 1800's house. We'd like to use it as a mantle on our stone fireplace. Does anyone know what we need to do to "prepare" the wood for putting it in our house? We want to make sure it doesn't have bugs (termites) nor is rotten. We've never done this before and don't know what to tell/ask the sawmills to do to it.

Thanks!

ive never worked with reclaimed wood, so i cant really give advice, but i can tell you what i would do.

off the top of my head i would first spray it in something that would kill bugs as a matter of safety, and then take a metal detecter and look for anything in it that would damage a plane blade, if i would find something, id dig it out, and fill the hole with woodfiller if its bad enough later, next, i would clean the wood with either a planer if it would fit in one(but i dont have that so i would go to my sanders), or a good random orbit sander would help, just be even with it. id check it over good, if i see a place that might be bad, id use a tool like a screwdriver to see if it goes in easy, if it does, it may not be worth using for anything but firewood, if it offers the firmness of a new board, i would call it good. i hope that helps