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My parent's own a 200+ year old house in France that has an amazing amount of tactile information held in it. To stick with the feel of the building we manually

My parent's own a 200+ year old house in France that has an amazing amount of tactile information held in it. To stick with the feel of the building we manually plastered the inside walls, which with exposed wooden beams in every room looks amazing. Each wall is unique in how it settled, each beam is unique in the cuts. The original upstairs floor was beautiful as it was hundreds of solid beams of wood 30 feet long, sadly most of it had been affected by wood worm on the surface ( everything had been hit by wood worms on the surface but miraculously the density of the oak or something seemed to keep them out of the core). While I like the convenience of manufactured products, they all lack the heart and soul that's held in a handmade product. Often they seem to be lacking in quality too, possibly due to the fact that it's the materials not the labor that now costs the most.

tjic 17y ago
> each beam is unique in the cuts A few years ago I took a class on timberframing ... and part of the class was building a timber frame house. There's a family that - RIGHT NOW - is sitting, eating, and sleeping feet away from beams that I hand planed and joints that I layed out, cut, and chiseled. That's a pretty cool feeling. There are also a handful of friends and family members who have peppermills and salad bowls in their kitchen, that they use every day, that I made on my lathe. I'm a big fan of making stuff with your own hands. (I even took today off from work so that I could sharpen some of my bowl gouges and work on some projects in the shop). I recommend that folks give it a shot. (And now, the obligatory plug - although I swear that I didn't plan it when I started this post! - if you're thinking of picking up a craft and don't know where to start, check out my startup http://smartflix.com http://smartflix.com )

tjic 17y ago

> each beam is unique in the cuts A few years ago I took a class on timberframing ... and part of the class was building a timber frame house. There's a family that - RIGHT NOW - is sitting, eating, and sleeping feet away from beams that I hand planed and joints that I layed out, cut, and chiseled. That's a pretty cool feeling. There are also a handful of friends and family members who have peppermills and salad bowls in their kitchen, that they use every day, that I made on my lathe. I'm a big fan of making stuff with your own hands. (I even took today off from work so that I could sharpen some of my bowl gouges and work on some projects in the shop). I recommend that folks give it a shot. (And now, the obligatory plug - although I swear that I didn't plan it when I started this post! - if you're thinking of picking up a craft and don't know where to start, check out my startup http://smartflix.com http://smartflix.com )