Hammer Head: The Making of a Carpenter by Nina MacLaughlin

Author:Nina MacLaughlin [MacLaughlin, Nina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Autobiography, Memoir, Career, Self-discovery, Carpentry, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
ISBN: 9780393246469
Amazon: B00L3KQ1J0
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2015-03-02T06:00:00+00:00

There is screwing, and there is screwing up. I did so much of it. Mistake after mistake. After the kitchen job with the countertop guy, we moved on to a job in Lexington, where the crosswalks are strictly enforced and tour guides in minutemen costumes lead history buffs around important historical sites. We were there to redo the first floor of an old carriage house—new floors, walls, kitchen, bathroom, some new windows, lots of doors and trim. It was a big job. The place edged up against an old graveyard filled with tiny headstones from the 1700s. One section of wobbly graves described an almost perfect circle, which created an additional layer of haunt and gloom. Every hour, one of the minutemen came around and showed his tour group a grave right by a big window where we were slamming in new floors. He wore full colonial-militiaman regalia. The thought of these guys climbing into their cars at the end of the day, placing their triangular hats on the seat beside them, made me feel sad. There’s something lonely about existing in two times. One damp afternoon, the tour guide was holding a can of Mountain Dew. What struck me wasn’t the anachronistic clash. It was more a sense, out of nowhere, that you shouldn’t drink soda in graveyards.

Mary had me trim the inside of a bedroom closet, an odd trapezoidal shape on an uneven floor against a bowed wall. I puzzled through how to get the correct angle of cut for a piece of baseboard that would line the section that ran from the side of the closet door to the corner on the right. This is a piece you would see if you stood inside the closet facing out into the bedroom. This was not a walk-in closet; it was a regular closet that you’d reach in to grab your button-down or your corduroy dress off the wire hanger. Unless you were hiding in there, there would be no reason ever to see this piece of wood.

I was trying to make the piece flush against the floor, flush against the wall, and flush against the other piece of trim it bumped into in the corner. These are always the goals with trim. Some days are easier than others.

I walked from the closet to the garage where we’d set up the saws. Over and over I traveled this path as I cut and re-cut the pieces of trim—across the new hardwood floors, through the kitchen, past the small bathroom under the stairs, and out into the garage. Frustration flared. Who cares how this piece fits? No one will ever see it. Such a waste of time. My motivation faltered—oh, it’s good enough like this, isn’t it, with a gap between the wood and the floor? Leave the wide seam there in the corner, just slop it up with some extra caulk.

I made half-blade cuts, shaving off pieces of the wood, one angle degree at a time. I took a

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