Kickin' It Old School

This weekend we were "Kickin' It Old School" at the Blog Cabin! By this, I mean we set the air compressor and nail gun aside and went back to the old hammer and nail. With the modern technology of a nail gun, you can frame a wall in about 20 minutes once all your cuts are made, it all comes together quite quickly. With a hammer, nail and little bit of umph, you can frame a wall in about an hour which is why our fast pace society has taken to the ol' gun in the first place. Even though modern technology has made it easy for us to build bigger structures faster & cheaper, there is something to be said about going back to the basics of hammer and nail. There is something there that you miss out on when using a nail gun. You miss the primitive sensation that occurs when the swing of the hammer gains momentum and quickly connects with a direct hit to the head of a nail. In that instance You become connected to whatever it is you are building. You can literally feel the nail being driven deeper and deeper, sinking itself into the dense piece of wood. Whap! Whap! Whap! Even the sounds the older tools make are much richer than the modern tools. A hammer connecting with a nail has much more flavor than the quick sharp pop of a nail gun.
Growing up, my dad and grandfather were always renovating, building and constructing. To this day the smell of sawdust can take me back 25 years in 3 seconds flat. I can remember the sounds of each tool so vividly. I remember exactly how many strikes of the hammer it took for my father to drive an 8d nail into a 2 x 6(six). I can remember the silly, awkward, wobbly noise the handsaw blade made when it's tooth hit against something hard. The handsaw is another tool that made an interesting sound - a light, slow tearing sound as my grandfather held the teeth to a board and slowly pulled back getting the teeth to bite the board and sink in a bit. Once the teeth were sunken in, it turned into a faster motion to continue the momentum and the cut. When he was almost to the end of the cut is when the strokes would be the fastest until the blade all of a sudden ripped through the other side of the board sending the excess chunk of wood to the ground with a hard THUD.
Building is an art and I sometimes feel that the modern tools are taking the romance out of the build. There is a connection and a passion that is missing between the carpenter and the structure today that existed way back when it took 3 times the amount of time to build a structure or a home. They are right when they say, "Rome wasn't built in a day", but I wonder why those structures able to stand the test of time and the office building that I work in that was constructed 5 years ago falling apart already? Maybe when things are hard, people take pride in them a bit more. Maybe the hard is what makes them great and the great is what creates passion for people. The handsaws and hammers are the canvas and brush for a carpenter. We can replace the canvas and brush with photoshop, but we can't expect the Mona Lisa right? So, today the Blog Cabin paid homage to the tools of the past. We took ourselves back to the grassroots of building and even with kickin' it old school we were able to put up the 2 remaining walls! YEAH! The journey of the day may have taken a bit more time and a bit more umph, but today we built a little bit more love into our little Blog Cabin and we even built memories to go along with it:)
Check it out: