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 Our customers
love their Timberfloors in which they can see, in a three
dimensional sense, how the tree grew and developed over time.
How it responded to an injury, how it grew more slowly or
more rapidly in response to changes around it.
By selecting only one “grade” of wood we would be
breaking that chain of information and richness.
We think the whole idea of grading parts of a living
organism compromises our ability to fully appreciate the beauty
there.
At Vermont
Timberfloor we give you all the beautiful flooring available in
each tree we cut. You
will receive “clear” wood right along with “knotty” wood.
One grading choice we will make, unless specifically
requested to do otherwise, is to remove portions of our flooring
that cannot be incorporated into your floor for structural
reasons.
These include
areas of unsound wood, wide
cracks or large holes. We
also “grade” the lumber for your floor when we cut logs that
produce an overabundance of featureless clear boards.
We set those aside and make them available to our customers
who wish to have wide single piece stair treads in species to
match their floor.
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“A
tree is our most intimate contact with nature."
George
Nakashima
An
inspiration for our throw-away-the-rulebook approach has been the
work of the Japanese American master wood craftsman, George
Nakashima (1905-1990). His
devotion to finding and presenting the individual and
idiosyncratic beauty of each tree he used made him a made him a
pioneer in the use of ungraded lumber and bookmatching joinery.
Click
here
to view images of his
process, very similar to our own
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