I think what I like most in anything created by man is when I see the proverbial square peg in a round hole. I have been fascinated in seeing and doing it my whole life. I guess that is why I love the old drafty, energy sucking house we live in.
Now I'm not saying that I don't have great respect and admiration for the craftsmanship that goes into a home built with quality milled woodwork and construction, but I have to say that I am partial to anything built from nothing more than necessity and/or imagination.
In my attic, there is a pine tree limb wedged between a rafter and a ceiling joist. It has a cut nail on the top and bottom holding it in place.
I can just see the man, yelling down for someone to cut him a limb "yeah" long, then wedging it in to push the warped rafter up close to even with the others. And there it is, a hundred years later, still holding up my roof .
My rock chimneys weren't built from rocks because rockwork was stylish, they were built from rocks because rocks were cheap and abundant. Back then there were piles of rocks everywhere there was a farm because every year when the ground was plowed, rocks were removed and set aside. It didn't take long before someone found a use for them. That's the same for log cabins. They were built basically because trees were abundant but saw mills weren't, or were too expensive. People just used what they had. There's lots of things that are thought to be stylish and expensive now that derived from the poor and resourceful making do with what they had in order to survive in tough times.
We are now, once again, in tough times. But our tough times don't hold a candle to what our ancestors considered normal. Normal then was getting up before dawn and working till after dark or till the job was done.
Going to town was something that they rarely did and was often at their own peril. They made their heat, their food, their clothes and anything else they needed, or they traded what they made, grew or caught to get them. All day, every day they worked, stopping only for church, funerals. Illness and the occasional visitor. Hard work was a part of life and respect and pride came from it which was instilled in their children who, in turn, did the same when they had children of their own. But over time I think we have lost, to some degree, the meaning of pride and respect and what it takes to get it, or more so what it takes to earn it.
I consider our house and others like it a treasure. But not because its level and square and adorned with decorative moldings and trim, but because it isn't. I don't consider it a treasure because of the work I've put into it either. It's a treasure because it represents a time when nothing came easy, when just having a roof over your head and food on the table was a luxury. Every room in our house was built for a reason and was built by family and neighbors using the resources and skills they had. It was built with no more than a hammer, nails, a hand saw, a axe and some rocks. It stands today as a reminder to me just how far we've come but also how much we lost getting here. It was a time when everything you had, you had because you worked for it with blood, sweat and tears. It was a time when communities looked after one another, pitching in when someone was in trouble. And the people that were helped would pay it forward when someone else was in need.
But the trade off from then to now is simplicity. Although we don't have the physical life and death challenges they had back then, we do have our worries. We worry about everything. We worry about our health, politics, schools, crime, finances and not just our own. The information highway goes right through every living room every night and with towers on every hill and cell phones in every pocket, there is no escape from the white noise that we are all stressed from, but addicted to. So it is no surprise that we are attracted to homes that are built to reflect a time when life was much simpler because most of us wished it was.

Charley Norton is co-owner of Norton's Flooring, a company started by his father in 1976. Norton's Flooring products are in countless homes on Lake Wedowee and throughout the county.

By Charley Norton

Charley Norton is co-owner of Norton's Flooring, a company started by his father in 1976. Norton's Flooring products are in countless homes on Lake Wedowee and throughout the county.