This village carpenter feeling comes from the book with the same name, written before 1937 by Walter Rose. He tells the story of his grandad's and dad's carpentry business, describes his childhood in the workshop with many people working around and at the clients. One of my big pleasures, is the interactions with the client. Especially the client...
And lots of other names. I'm doing thousands of them at the moment and my wrists hurt. They've been traditionally used all over the world for hundreds, probably thousands of years and since there's plenty of overgrown sweet chestnut coppices around here, some of us keep'em going.
Last week, Travis came to the woods for a two days hewing course. He trains at the Weald and Downlands Living Museum on the building conservation MSc. He obtained a grant from Heritage craft to develop new skills.
Here we are, it'll go in Chichester, with nice people, for a woodland camping (website). I've got a very naïve and intense satisfaction with that project. It feels like I can express something building that and it looks like it is relatively comprehensible. Thanks Tom, Sarah, Ivan.
One tricky thing I have been bad at dealing with, are the dovetails between the tie beams and the wall plates. The curves and bends on my timbers made the chalk lining-up very important, I should have centered the lines where the dovetails are. The difference in thickeness of the timber is also a slight problem for the esthetics....
Again, Wilderness Woods, down in East Sussex, has been a source of beautiful display of a functionning community. A week worth of work with furiously motivated volunteers. I've been paid with silliness and politically incorrect humour, and it was worth it.
I don't know where it'll end up. The goal is to build a waterproof cabin, entirely out of the wood of the forest next to my cottage, with handtools only.
The arrogant french man I am is amazed by the diversity of places we can find in the South-East of England. Last year, a new friend introduced me into the Wilderness Woods (website), a place I'd call experimental, open and well oiled. I'll leave you the pleasure of the discovery if you want to give them a visit. ...
Back in the open air museum of Jarrow Hall in Newcastle. After repairing the Saxon house, we've been asked to furnish it.
Don't stop reading after a wrong interpretation of the title. I recently was asked for help by young couple that bought an old farmhouse in the countryside close to Tours, France. Their roof was a patchwork of old and very recent modifications. It was wrong and looked wrong. The difference with any other work I have ever done, was that...