The corner notching on this barn is beautiful, in part because it is flawed. It was built by a man who clearly understood the characteristics of wood and who was also highly skilled at using an axe. This barn was clearly not created by a man who built cabins for a living. The result? There are many flaws in the workmanship… gaps and irregularities abound. And yet, his work is absolutely gorgeous… because, it looks “handmade”.
There is a curse within all the building trades. It seems that the more a craftsman works on developing his skills, the more his work ends up looking manufactured. A stone mason shapes his stones so much they begin to look like brick. The brick mason’s work begins to look like rolled-out vinyl flooring. The plasterer’s work is so smooth that it looks like drywall. The blacksmith’s work becomes so free of character that it belongs on the shelf at Walmart.
There are many people that can do a sloppy job of notching a log cabin. I am fortunate to know a dozen or two that can do a perfect job at it, notches so tight that a dollar bill cannot be inserted anywhere between two logs. But there are precious few artisans who could reproduce this corner… something that “great, great, grandpa of old” whipped out when he wasn’t farming.
Originally posted 2015-09-07 14:05:52.
Wow….you just made my day.I am forever looking at my flaws. 🙂
I told my wife the same thing about “manufactrured”. One time she said you could see the brush strokes in her painted cabinet. I told her I prefered it, because it looked like someone actually painted it by hand, not a sprayed on finish with fake looking glaze.
My flaws drive me crazy. I am always telling my wife that I’d love to live in a house that I didn’t build so that I can blame the other guy for what I see daily.