Sometimes my mind goes in a direction that seems like it is different than everyone else. For instance, while remodeling the kitchen to add the new microwave hood, I found a piece of blocking in the wall that was rough sawn oak. I have written about wood and my speculation of it’s origin before.

To the untrained eye, this would have been tossed out with all of the other debris. It is too short to re-use anywhere. It is still full of nails and has a sizable knot on one edge. But I saw something different.

I first noticed that is rough sawn. That is why I set it aside to look at it later. Then I noticed that it is a true 2″ piece of dimensional lumber. After I pulled the nails out, I started to notice the saw markings. If you look closely, one face is cut with a circular saw (those are the curved lines) and the other face was cut with a band saw (indicated by vertical lines).

Now, I am going to jump around a bit as I do to eventually get to a point (you can feel like you are getting a Malcom Gladwell experience here). In 2015, we wanted to paint the house. While attempting to do some rot repair, we found that the house was constructed in an unusual way. That led to adding new siding. After everything was completed, we were paid a visit by a former owner (Lloyd) who brought us a handful of pictures and a couple hours of stories as it was from the 1960’s when he purchased the house.

Over the years, we have had a number of run-ins with people that are connected to this house. It first started in 2005 (our first year here) when we had a garage sale. Some people that stopped by said that their grandparents lived here and that they used to stay here in the summertime in the 1950’s as children. Everybody knows this house, it is a big, blue Victorian at the top of the hill on Main St.

It seems as though the history of the house is uncertain. The county list the date as 1893. Former owner’s claim that is when records began and that this house dates back to 1873. Further, stories allege that this was the original homestead in the area, with all the lumber from the site. Now, we are starting to circle back to wood.

Let us assume that the rough sawn board on the left is from this site. I counted the growth rings on that board as 36 from what I could see. Not knowing the ultimate size of the tree, a person could speculate that tree was at least growing in the 1850’s (1893 – 36 = 1857).

The board on the right is definitely from this site because I milled it in 2006. When I cut down the fir tree, it had 56 rings making it planted in 1950. The history of the house in that period is much more certain.

Lloyd tells a story that he was living in an old farm house across the street. He was noticed that it was empty and went to inquire about the future of the house. The city considered it a nuisance house (it was previously spit into college apartments) and was going to tear it down, so Lloyd purchased the house. I guess you could say that Lloyd saved the house, but somewhat killed it at the same time because the house was stripped to the framing both inside and out.

The lap siding was replaced with T1-11, the plaster gone, windows replaced, doors and Victorian decoration all gone. On the upside, we got a modern electrical service (200 amps) and insulation and a new lease on life. We heard about how he ceded a portion of the property in back so that the neighbor had a lot size big enough to build a house. We heard about how the other neighbor built the fence on our side of the property line. All-in-all, it was an extremely interesting and surprising visit.

At this point, no one fully knows what was happening on this property in the 1850’s. The town was incorporated in 1859, the same year as the state. One of my future goals is to look at historical pictures and see if I can discern any truth about the origin of the house, including architectural details. I have seen some aerial photographs taken from a balloon that date to the 1880s, but they always orient toward the city center, which is to say away from this house.

There have been numerous changes in the town landmarks over the years. Houses have been moved, rails were removed, even the highway was moved in World War II to accommodate for an army base down the road. It will take a keen eye and thoughtful mind to reconstruct the past, but it sounds like fun.

Happy Father’s Day everyone.