It actually goes well with your home flower or vegetable garden, providing refreshing rustic hues to your simple dwelling but also elegant in a humble way.
Wooden dowel houses of long ago partnered well with garden plants. A lot of old houses there were beautifully backdropped with a mix of colorful flowery ornamental and vegetable plants.
I marveled at the old houses. I was especially fascinated by the way the ancestral houses were constructed. No metal nail or screw were used but only wooden dowels, and according to the farmer-carpenter who served as our guide, wood dowel construction was better aesthetically and structurally. Proof is that, the old houses still stood beautifully even after decades of sun, rain and typhoons, he added.
To me, more than anything else, it was the history I felt in the old houses.
We stayed in the old house of a relative, actually an archaic two-level cabin, supposedly built during the Spanish occupation. The ground floor was of stone, the second floor of antiquated hard wood. The wood construction was fascinating. Everything was of dowel construction, pretty much like tongue and groove construction. My engineer companion's family, owner of the ancestral house and a relative of my aunt, told me to check for nailed joints, if I could see one. So I did. I went up and down the house.
I was so amazed! I didn't see any. It was my first time to see a house constructed without nails, and that included the roof truss, girt and purlin connections. Carpenters of old were experts at it, my Caviteno engineer friend told me. The coming of the nail technology only made houses inferior, he added. I guess metal and wood don't mix well. They can only do temporarily, with damaging effects eventually.
Dowel construction is an ingenious way of putting construction members together by means of dowels or wood pegs thrust into holes in lieu of nails or screws. For instance, a hole is bored into member A. Member B is equipped with a dowel which is inserted into the hole made on member A. The fit must be accurate--not too loose, not too tight. The dowel is gradually inserted into the hole by gentle hammering, preferably with a rubber cushioned hammer head.
The cabin we stayed in was built near the end of the Spanish regime in the Philippines, almost during the American Period, but the house still stands firm, though needing essential repairs. Even the window and door jambs, and the windows and doors themselves, were done using dowel construction. It was a shame that digital cameras were not yet around to take videos of how they were produced and applied by carpenters of those periods.
Recently, I asked how the house was, and it's been dilapidated, one of the owners said. They might demolish everything and sell the property. I sighed deeply. I'm going to miss that house. I remember how it was awesome seeing its joints and frame members connected together by dowels. I never tired of looking at them.
Well, of course, the wood used then were sturdy and solid woods from mature lumber. As I ran my fingers on the smooth wood surface, they felt like solid concrete--almost like marble. You can hardly make a dent or mark by scratching even with a sharp metal tool. It's near impossible to do the same construction quality now-a-days, my engineer friend opined. But I sure would like to own a mountain cabin of dowel construction.
Later, I also saw furniture made on the spot without nails. Also jambs and doors and windows. Only dowels and tongues and grooves were used. It's fascinating to see carpenters use manual labor to make accurate dowels and holes to fit them in. No electric drills or anything like that.
Construction using welding is also good, so is the use of nails and screws, but I'd rather have my house done with the wood dowel system--if I had the money for it. There's a touch of mystery and history about houses of dowels, old or new.
We stayed in the old house of a relative, actually an archaic two-level cabin, supposedly built during the Spanish occupation. The ground floor was of stone, the second floor of antiquated hard wood. The wood construction was fascinating. Everything was of dowel construction, pretty much like tongue and groove construction. My engineer companion's family, owner of the ancestral house and a relative of my aunt, told me to check for nailed joints, if I could see one. So I did. I went up and down the house.
I was so amazed! I didn't see any. It was my first time to see a house constructed without nails, and that included the roof truss, girt and purlin connections. Carpenters of old were experts at it, my Caviteno engineer friend told me. The coming of the nail technology only made houses inferior, he added. I guess metal and wood don't mix well. They can only do temporarily, with damaging effects eventually.
The cabin we stayed in was built near the end of the Spanish regime in the Philippines, almost during the American Period, but the house still stands firm, though needing essential repairs. Even the window and door jambs, and the windows and doors themselves, were done using dowel construction. It was a shame that digital cameras were not yet around to take videos of how they were produced and applied by carpenters of those periods.
Well, of course, the wood used then were sturdy and solid woods from mature lumber. As I ran my fingers on the smooth wood surface, they felt like solid concrete--almost like marble. You can hardly make a dent or mark by scratching even with a sharp metal tool. It's near impossible to do the same construction quality now-a-days, my engineer friend opined. But I sure would like to own a mountain cabin of dowel construction.
Later, I also saw furniture made on the spot without nails. Also jambs and doors and windows. Only dowels and tongues and grooves were used. It's fascinating to see carpenters use manual labor to make accurate dowels and holes to fit them in. No electric drills or anything like that.
Construction using welding is also good, so is the use of nails and screws, but I'd rather have my house done with the wood dowel system--if I had the money for it. There's a touch of mystery and history about houses of dowels, old or new.
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