Vermont Timberfloor

Grown in Vermont - Admired Everywhere

Who is Vermont Timberfloor?

Our Unique Flooring

Timberfloor wide plank floors are produced using a centuries old sawing technique that highlights the actual growth patterns and luminous internal grain present, but rarely seen, in every  tree.  

Other  flooring, both narrow strip and wide plank style, is sawn using a technique that involves frequently turning the log to minimize those beautiful natural features and to maximize the yield of ‘clear’, uniform (bland) appearing lumber.  

The Timberfloor sawing technique is sometimes called “flitch’ sawing or sawing “through and through”. It mirrors the centuries old human powered sawing method know as “pit sawing”,  developed in the Middle Ages in Europe, in which one person stood in a pit beneath the log and one above it. A long straight saw was pulled up and down to saw through the log and create one board at a time.  

Later, with the development of water and wind mills, muscle power was replaced by mechanical power. The up and down sawing motion of the early pit sawing was retained.  

As mills, especially water mills, became more efficient and powerful, the single blade saw evolved into a saw with multiple parallel blades mounted in a frame. These were called frame, sash or gang saws and cut the logs from end to end as the logs were slowly pushed through.

“In our trapeze work we strive to achieve balance and beauty.  It seems only natural that our family’s forestry and plank flooring business does the same.  As you might imagine we especially love the bookmatched flooring pieces.”

Twins Elsie and Serenity Smith of Nimble Arts in Brattleboro, Vermont www.trapezetwins.com

FLITCH SAWN AND BOOKMATCHED LUMBER

Each piece of lumber sawn this way is called a “flitch”. The flitches closest to the center of the log will show a unique and beautiful grain pattern rarely seen in modern lumber but treasured by custom furniture builders and other wood craftsmen.

In addition to the more luminous grain of flitch-sawn lumber, each board has the potential to be used in a rare woodworking technique called “book-matching”.  In book-matching, two consecutively sawn pieces are precisely joined together to create a mirror image in wood that reminds some of butterfly wings and others of a mandala or the pages of a medieval illustrated manuscript. 

Timberfloor is the only flooring producer to offer selected hardwood flitch-sawn, book-matched pieces to feature in your floor.

The special luminosity and three-dimensional depth of flitch sawn lumber is difficult to convey via the Internet. At the risk of being corny, you have to see it to believe it. 

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