What a silly thing to say to a photographer! “Don’t look at the light!” Word zipped around the construction site. With the welder working his magic, the seasoned veterans expressed concern to the juniors. Stories traveled, quickly, tersely, between saw cuts and cigarette exhales about coworkers gone blind too …
The design — a simple, open space, framed by windows, anchored by a stone fireplace — requires steel: a foreign concept to my New England shipbuilder bones! I know how to fell a tree, limb it, debark it, and slice it into timbers. I know how to join the timbers. …
“They don’t make ’em like they used to,” my framer quips. “They have laws against that.” Right here, at this corner of the house, decades of construction technology unite. Solid, rough-hewn wood; mortise and tenon joinery and wide planks of old growth pine meet steel and LVLs and strand board …
The stairs aren’t safe. Yes, they will hold your weight. Yes, your balance might compensate for the missing handrail. And the missing wall. But still, we don’t want you to travel up those stairs. You see, it isn’t about you. Unseen, in the attic, two stories up, a crew is demolishing …
Tough-N-Dry (Fantasy) Eighty-five muggy New England degrees, at noon-thirty, and this man shows up on the job site, jacket buttoned to his neck, wearing gloves. Something like a sock bunches around his neck. Slightly more curious than nervous, I introduce myself. He responds, “Tough and dry.” No name. I look …
Cargo (Common Sense) My job calls me to document changes to the building, but I’m more interested in the changes to the workers. Some are the third generation in a family dedicated to skilled, hard, dirty work: slate roofing in one-hundred degree heat comes first to mind. Some bring their …
Shaker Style (Memory) Shaker boxes, the real deal, collected by Pat’s mother Wild colors faded Musty smells of herbs long gone Captivating construction Bent painted wood Copper nails Nested neatly Promise a place for everything A place that lasts past the maker’s life past the maker’s faith Past. They taught …
Demolition (Common Sense) Saw vibrating through brick and mortar, one man perches in the rafters unseen. The results of his terrible work fly from his hands, explode on the floor, show us where the light comes in. At pauses in the work his partner clears remains into a waiting dumpster. …