March, 2009

Haunt Historic Homes

Earn the respect of your clients—and respectable fees—by knowing more about your craft.

By Gary Katz

Some of the most valuable lessons I learn about carpentry I learn from dead men—ghosts: 200-year-old carpenters who left their mark on the woodwork of historic homes all across America. And it’s no wonder that there is so much to learn from the past—we’ve lost or forgotten lessons we learned centuries ago about design and construction.

In the last few generations, carpentry has become an easy-access career route, one where you can learn ‘on the job.’ But all that easy accessibility has a price. Self-taught carpenters pay for their education not only with increased errors, rework, and callbacks, but also with the loss of fundamental building blocks. Additionally, keeping up with new technological changes in building products—from plastic housewrap to selfadhesive waterproof membranes, from fresh-growth wood to pvc trim—make it doubly difficult to turn back and study the past in order to improve the future.

But with the downturn in our industry, it’s more important than ever to study our craft. Construction in middle American homes is drying up, while high-end work continues to grow more demanding— yet that’s where the jobs are and that’s where they’re going to be for finish carpenters and contractors. Support your customers and help them improve their work; provide your customers with the tools they need to meet the demand. One of those tools is a simple map or list of historic homes in your own town.

In every town across our country, even in Los Angeles where I live—a city known for not having a past, there are historic homes we can learn from. Several years ago, while visiting the Fenyes Mansion in Pasadena, I found a particularly handsome mantelpiece with details that I’ve used in many of the mantels I’ve since designed This is only one example of how visiting historic homes and studying craftsmanship can improve our work. Encourage builders to visit historic homes in your regional area so they’ll learn more about design and craftsmanship; so they’ll be more knowledgeable about their profession and earn the respect of their clients; so they’ll be better prepared to meet the demands of high-end finish work.

GARY KATZ, with nearly 40 years experience in the industry, has been a frequent contributor to leading trade journals for more than a decade. He produces the Katz Roadshow- Carpentry Clinics at lumberyards all over America, and publishes THISisCarpentry.com— an E-magazine for carpenters and craftsman. To learn more, visit: www.GaryMKatz.com