rare interior siding

After I finished two bee houses yesterday I continued to clean up my very messy shop. messy with bits and pieces of lumber from here, there and everywhere. I happily removed a few nails from four short pieces of wood before turning them into two small, rustic birdhouses.

["lovely wood to handle"]

As I worked I realized the wood was very rare. Though it was riddled with nail holes (not too rare), seemed to be old fir (not absolutely rare), came from a century-old home on Duchess Avenue (not entirely rare), it had grey lines on one side, made by plaster that had been spread over and between lathes (lathe plaster walls are not completely rare in Old South; my own house has lathe and plaster walls).

However, to have lathe and plaster over inch thick (and really dry) fir interior walls seems very rare to me. I have often seen just two by four frames behind the plastered walls.

Unfortunately, the workers did not remove the interior walls plank by plank. I was informed they had taken a saw to the walls and cut the valuable (and rare) lumber into short pieces. And that's not rare. But it is wasteful.

Photos by GH

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Please click here to view two bee houses