Does anyone else collect wood from old family homes or home sites for projects?
I have material from Great Grand Parents, Grandparents and the family homeplace that I am saving for a wall clock. It will be several different species of wood but it only has to please one person! Some have been cut from larger "hunks" that just weren't usable.
I guess this comes from several years of genealogy research and growing up in a location where old homes are torn down or demolished for new construction.
Nice idea.
Not for a lived everywhere person like me (especially since my dad had hated his home town soooo much that we never ever went there--no family left in that town, maybe 25 miles away in another state, though--my mother's family is scattered and away from the home place--where I have been--for many years.)
But my dad did find a Chinese restaurant in San Francisco where he had eaten 20 years before the time we went through as a family. :)
We have a small old farm in the family that I've taken wooden wagon and buggie parts from to make furniture out of. I love having a story when someone asks if I made the coffee table or the farmers table in the kitchen.
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Since this thread drifted a bit part of it has been moved to the septic tank tangent so we can learn more about "Family" wood projects here.
I moved away from the old family homestead almost 40 years ago so haven't had much opportunity to get old family wood. Granddad had 3 sawmills in Oregon so wood he cut is in some of the places there.
My mom came down a month or so ago and had me saw her some boards on my sawmill and cut her out some to size for a bookshelf. Didn't nail it together because of shipping space in their van, but she just wanted to be able to have something made from a real log and off of my mill. Kind of family wood in reverse. :)
The house on my wife's family farm was lost years ago to fire. The farm land has been allowed to "return to nature" ... being visited occasionally by family members for rekindling fond old memories. The old cow barn finally fell in on itself a few years back.
One of the nephews, skilled in woodwork, has been harvesting much of the old "heart wood" out of the barn's remains ... and making craft items to be given at Christmas. At the holiday family gathering, we each bring one gift ($30 limit) and then we play a form of "liars' lottery" to distribute the gifts. Lots of fun! Richard of course, brings a couple of his "barn pieces" as gifts.
These pieces are cherished, ... being from the "barn" and fashioned by Richard's capable hands.
We have a wall clock, a "shaker's table", and a "Jacob's ladder". Speaks well for my lying skills.
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Swapped things around a bit to get this topic straightened out. This should get it back on topic and back to the top. :)