Most people do not know much about the now antique wood-working machines that were used to mill the lumber for their bungalows. Eric LaVelle is a master historic preservationist who uses the old machines that he rescues from 100+ year old abandoned mills to restore the houses in his care. I am a believer in having full understanding of a subject & believe that having knowledge of the machines that helped create your bungalow is intrinsic to this understanding.
When I could find them, I am including the antique versions of the old machines. Several of them are made by Eric & posted by klavelle. If needed, I also include the modern ones so that you can see them in action. They are listed here in alpha order of the names of the machines, not the manufacturers. Because there are so many of them, I have not included the images for each video, but just the links to each.
Before you click on these links, you might want to turn the sound down on your speakers. These are monster antique wood-working machines, filmed cutting large pieces of wood & the sound can be deafening! Even the modern ones make a great deal of racket & their manufacturers recommend wearing ear protection when they are being used.
Once again, Eric’s words are in quotes. Mine are just there, unadorned, though, if I’m rudely interrupting him, you’ll see me in brackets.
Rigging is the act of using equipment to lift or support a load. And when we’re talking a load here, many of these old machines weigh over a ton, like a small car.
Eric says, “… in order to bring home a machine to restore, I had to be able to move it. I was on a tight budget, so I had to learn how to do it by hand.”
Also, powered lift equipment simply would not fit into the mills or warehouses from which he removes equipment. Not to mention that the rotting floors he encounters, some of which have already collapsed, simply could not support the added weight.
Machines piled in the basement. Their weight has caused the rotting floor under them to collapse.
“These techniques can often be incorporated into old house restoration when heavy stone or timbers need to be moved and placed.”
There is an elegant simplicity to each of these tools.
HOW TO MOVE RIDICULOUSLY HEAVY STUFF
Don’t try this at home, or anywhere, really!
Drum sander moved out of a basement with no reasonable stairway by totally disassembling it.
“Sometimes a machine can be taken apart into much smaller, more manageable pieces if necessary. When I do that, I take an extensive number of pictures before and during disassembly.”
“…it’s really nice to have a second person to help. They don’t have to be big and strong, they just need to be able to place blocks or pipes as the machine is getting moved.
In fact, any attempt to lift this stuff by hand is really risky. A friend of mine who was in peak physical condition attempted to lift and pull a 2300lb piece of equipment, and ended up very sore and exhausted while the machine just sat still and laughed.”
Below are some images of some of Eric’s hand rigging tools. Please know that these are what he uses to move machines that weigh hundreds, even several thousand pounds each.
1. Johnson bar 2. Come-along hand winch 3. Burke bar 4. 1 1/4″ steel pipe 5. Long wedge 6. 3/4″ steel pipe 7. Regular 2-wheeled dolly.
“I’ve included a photo of some of my favorite hand rigging equipment: [Above]
1. Johnson bar or lever dolly, which will probably lift 5000lbs. [A Johnson bar helps provide leverage when needed to get underneath loads. The wheels provide a strong base, for secure leverage and safety.]
2. Come along/hand winch, a hand-operated winch [a hauling or lifting device such as this one] with a ratchet [a device with a wheel with teeth which allows motion in only one direction] used to pull objects. The drum [a cylindrical part of a machine] is wrapped with wire rope.
3. Long pry bar (specifically the Burke bar, which has become my favorite & can also probably lift 5000lbs)
4 and 6. Steel pipe in a couple different sizes. [Eric places these under the machines and rolls them along the floor and into whatever vehicle is waiting to transport them.] I’ve seen a machine that weighed 10 tons rolled through a building on a steel pipe, and the pipes did not crush. [Here’s a great story of a machine that was moved by the use of these steel pipes.]
5. A couple long wedges
6. A two wheeled dolly which is good for items under about 500lbs.
“Not pictured on the trailer deck are:
1. A chain hoist which will allow you to easily lift up to 5 tons. [You can see this handy little item in operation here.}
2. A low profile car jack which will lift 2 or 3 tons.
3. A pallet jack, which I call a poor man’s forklift and will lift 5500lbs for most models..
“I could probably buy this entire list on the used market for the price of renting a forklift for one day.
2200lb Greenlee 228 mortiser.
“The most difficult rig Claire and I have done is putting the 2200lb Greenlee 228 mortiser in the basement shop. We had to put it on 4×4 timbers with outriggers bolted to them for safety, unload it from the trailer, lay the machine face down with the chain hoist, lever it down two steps while going into a doorway, then stand it back up in the basement with a chain hoist.
“When we have to load a machine onto a trailer, we often strap it to a pallet jack and pull it up ramps with the hand winch. When a machine is on ramps, going either up or down, we wrap a large tie down strap once around the front of the trailer frame and tie it back to the machine. This allows us to instantly stop a machine with a light tug.
“To go across dirt or gravel, we lay a road of planks so the pipes or wheels stay on a firm surface. In a pinch, sometimes a simple 2×4 can be used as a lever. I’ve included a video Claire took where I was rotating a 1400lb planer with a 2×4.”
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This is some background on the machines that Eric is rescuing, making construction prior to electricity possible. The majority, if not all of his articles refer to what is covered here, so please read it so that you can understanding the following tales of daring-do.
Our bungalows are products of this old technology. All the wood in our framing, our siding, our shingles, built-ins, our wainscoting was milled by these machines. They are a major part of our homes’ histories.
THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
The Arts & Crafts Movement of the 19th Century was born as a reaction to the more mechanized world of the Industrial Revolution. This revolution increased production capacity by 1,000 fold in every industry. Instead of the artisan’s handcrafting of a beautiful chair, a factory churned out hundreds of chairs & fitted them with fancy gee-gaws. This had a major impact on people’s daily lives. Instead of working in a craft studio, or on the family farm, people swarmed to the cities where they went to work in a factory tending huge, whirring machines & earned the where-with-all to purchase these items- at least some of them did. Thanks to Charles Dickens we know that many remained ill-fed, un-housed & impoverished, orphaned & barefoot while some thrived, amassing great fortunes.
The grandfather of the Arts & Crafts Movement, John Ruskin had much to say on the matter. His statement, “Every increased possession loads us with a new weariness,” eloquently summarized the philosophy of the Movement.
(Looking at these images of children slaving to help feed their families makes me very weary. Oh, yeah. If they had families)
THE ENERGY THAT SUPPORTED CONSTRUCTION PRIOR TO ELECTRICITY
The key driver of the Industrial Revolution was the harnessing of energy. With this ability to control power, our old growth forests could be razed & milled. The logs could be turned into lumber for homes, furniture & indeed, into the factory buildings that held the mills, some of these being thousands of square feet in size.
However, even prior to the coal powered steam engine was the invention of the line shaft which allowed many machines to be operated from one energy source, be it steam, water, wind or even animal.
HOW THEY DID IT
A line shaft is a power-driven rotating shaft for power transmission that distributed power from a large central power source to individual pieces of machinery throughout a workshop or an industrial complex. The central power source could be a water wheel, windmill, animal power or a steam engine. Originally, most had probably been powered by steam but in later years they were powered by a huge electric motor. In many cases, the individual machines were still set up for and connected to the line shaft system, so rather than replacing the machines, they just updated the power supplier.
These machines were an OSHA nightmare. Loud and dangerous with no safety features, they exemplified Industrial Age technology during which time thousands of people left their farms & surged into cities to work in the factories & loose fingers, limbs & lives to these behemoths.
These machines factored largely in the building of our bungalows. I do not believe that construction prior to electricity would have existed on any scale without the use of line shaft.
LINE SHAFT CONSTRUCTION
Here’s how it was constructed:
On the floor, or on the ceiling, was the power source, attached to the main shaft which it propelled by a belt attached to a pulley.
Hanging from the wood ceiling beams was the counter (or intermediate) shaft , a long, thick heavy, (often hundreds of pounds) metal rod. This shaft was attached to the high ceiling beams by heavy metal hangers.
Attached to this counter shaft were round metal pulleys, ranging in size from around 6″ in diameter to 36.” Long belts made of leather or fabric (usually leather) ran across these pulleys, to pulleys on the individual machines giving each individual machine its power. This was all suspended over a great expanse, as high as 15 feet it the air, which Eric & his merry band would access by standing on ladders.
Here’s a video of one operating, though the size of it is much smaller than the line shafts rescued by Eric.
When you next admire the beautiful features of your house, consider the part that line shafts played. Observe a moment of silence in honor of those who toiled for so little in this cacophony, lost limbs & lives to create the materials that make your house so beautiful.
And then trot on over to Eric’s stories of rescuing antique woodworking machines!
READ ALL THE STORIES ABOUT ERIC’S ADVENTURES IN COLLECTING ANTIQUE MACHINES!
WARNING! This post is only for those of you who want to create an authentic period interior & would like some tips on how to do so. It is not written with the purpose of changing anyone’s mind, tastes, or life decisions.
In DESIGNING Part 1, I talk about my friend who turned her beautiful Arts & Crafts home into a nursery school. She was a wonderful mother with a house full of joyful toddlers who could play freely in their home. I admired her greatly & enjoyed watching her children learn how to move their bodies & interact with the material universe.
My series is written to give anyone a hand with designing anything, be it a home, a party, a special outfit. It is basic art theory that is applicable to anything & everything in life. Art theory is kind of like physics- it is merely an explanation of how we view the material world- lines, colors, shapes, sizes, etc., & how we can make them work together to please us.
It is paramount that your home pleases you. You need to feel that it expresses you & it must be a comforting haven. Me, I like a house that tells a story & I find that decorating with items that might have been chosen by its original owners to please me greatly. If that’s what you like, keep reading. If you would like to choose a different ambience, that’s fine too.
DESIGN IS IN MY BLOOD!
My mother had very definite ideas about interior design. I’m guessing that many of these were learned from her mother who, after growing up on a West Virginia farm, strove to become a woman of culture, refinement & taste .
After a life of milking the cows & slopping the pigs, she left her family at a young age to live in town so she could continue her schooling. Bright & eager, she carefully observed how things were done in her new environment. From the precise placement of silverware to the use correct of candlesticks (no unlit candles allowed!) she absorbed the rules of her new life & passed them onto my mother who taught them to her only daughter. Like my bad knees & an affinity for grammar, I come by my opinions on design honestly.
Here’s Grandma Gordie Elsie in 1922, in her cut silk velvet dress, hair styled in a perfectly Marcelled wave, her daughter, my dear mother, attired in the little silk pongee dress that I still keep in a box & cherish. My uncles, look like solemn, miniature men in their ties & 3-piece suits. The very height of 20’s family chic.
AVOIDING BUNGALOW INTERIOR DESIGN MISTAKES
My mother had her own irrepressible style sense from a very young age & passed this on to me. “Your home reflects you- your tastes, your aspirations, your experiences. You can be inspired by the work of others, but don’t try to be others. Be yourself!”
The constant lesson, “Be yourself.”
When she was in her 90’s, we spend hours wheeling around Stanford Hospital, Ma hooked up to oxygen & a heart monitor, together, marveling at their spectacular art collection. (After her release from the hospital, we amused ourselves by making scathing comments about the “art’ in the skilled nursing center. We were harsh critics!)
Viewed as a fashionista until the end. Her long nails were always bright red & she never left her apartment without makeup.
And she was always her warm, quirky, uncompromising, opinionated unique self.
MOM’S DESIGN RULES
1. Less is more- the idea that a restrained hand creates good design. A major Bungalow Don’t is excessive gewgaws. We are not Victorians!
My grandmother’s early life on the farm was delineated by the concept of less. A family tradition still used by my brother & me today is the Southern holiday greeting of, “Christmas gift!” On the farm, each child would receive one gift- a walnut, an orange, a homemade doll & be joyfully grateful.
By the time my mother was born in 1919, the family was affluent, & my ever-observant grandmother, growing ever more cultured as she attended the theater, visited museums & hob-nobbed with the social elite of her town, had become aware of quality & of the simplicity in good design. A teacher by training & by inclination, she passed these lessons on to my mother. Who passed them on to me.
Re-enforcing these lessons of simplicity, I grew up in the desert of the Southwest with the aesthetics of the Hopi & the Navajo influencing my taste. The desert does not provide anything in abundance & its austere beauty still overwhelms & inspires me. The Craftsman aesthetic melds beautifully with Native American arts & crafts, both using Mother Nature’s gifts in an honest, unadorned manner.
2. Establish your focal point & use every other element to enhance it. Don’t confuse the eye by providing random elements on which to focus. Even with many things to look at, by careful placement, you can guide the eye in the direction you want it to go.
3. No eating in the living room. Oops, that one just slipped in.
4. Lighting is a key element. It directs attention, establishing hierarchies of importance, makes a room functional & establishes mood. Do not create areas of glare. Keep it soft other than where task lighting is required.
One of the most common bungalow interior design mistakes is using lighting fixtures in a modest bungalow that are more suitable in a bungamansion. These pieces will only overwhelm your house, detracting from the lovely features that are there. The Gamble house works because all the pieces enhance one another. The same principle applies in your bungalow.
5. Choose only pieces that you love & treasure. From furniture to textiles to art, better an empty space than the Bungalow Don’t of soulless fillers.
6. The TV does not belong in the living room. However, if you have a small house, you might have no other place for it to sit.
Should this be the case, please do not place that TV above your fireplace. Your fireplace is a key design feature of your room, your whole house, actually. It is very likely clad in an beautiful ornamental tile & flanked by glass-doored cabinets. Perhaps there are windows with divided lites above these cabinets. These are standout period features & plopping your TV smack in the middle will- I’m going to be harsh here-it will waste them.
I visited some friends in a beautiful Craftsman one Christmas & they had the TV hung over the fireplace blaring out a holiday themed program. I was stunned. The electronic images completely took over the living room & dining room, the Christmas tree & the holiday spirit which I so enjoy in an old house. (This is not that house. This is the Hare House with a Photoshopped Santa just so I could pass the trauma of one of my unfavorite bungalow interior design mistakes on to you. Sorry.)
7. Treasure the architectural features of your house. They are what give it its character & charm.
8. Examples of Extreme Bungalow Please Don’ts-
Painting, removing or otherwise harassing your stained woodwork. My DESIGNING series should help you figure out how to brighten your home without doing this.
Removing walls to change the flow of the house. Example: opening the kitchen to the dining room. The layout of your house is a character-defining feature.
Adding decorative/fake materials to make it fancier. Avoid the bungalow interior design mistakes of thinking that the original features of your dear house could be improved. Putting lipstick on your pig will be more effective.
Any changes you make to a house of any period should go in a backward direction, taking it back to its original design.
9. Make sure there are areas in which kids do not have to be careful. Bungalows are family homes & there must be room for the kids to play.
10. Don’t try to make your home so perfect looking that it feels like a hotel. I have a 100 year old Chinese cabinet that is way too large for my current house. I styled it & it hits the eye more pleasingly with the added bits & bobs, but truly, the proportion is still awful.
Too bad. I love that cabinet & if someday I end up in a tiny tiny, old lady space & have to sleep standing up in it, I’ll just learn how to snooze on my feet.
Yes, I know that one person’s bungalow interior design mistakes are another one’s beauty, but, please check out what our good buddy Gustav Stickley had to say about it in his magazine, The Craftsman, to understand my stance.
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Gustav Stickley brought Arts & Crafts to America from Europe in the early 1900’s. He carried with him both the aesthetic & the philosophy of the Movement, & then did it his way, inspired by the simplicity of the log cabin. He was considered to be the leading authority on architecture, gardens & interior design for the Craftsman house. Should you wish to learn more about Stickley, check out these videos that I have collected about him & his work.
In addition to making & selling furniture, he created a monthly magazine, The Craftsman, “An illustrated monthly magazine edited & published by Gustav Stickley in the interests of better art, better work & a better & more reasonable way of living.”
The magazine was a beautiful vehicle for spreading the word about the American Arts & Crafts Movement as well as promoting his furniture & his stores. It contains articles about the English founders of the Movement, John Ruskin & William Morris & was a key influence on the culture from 1901-1916 at which point it merged with another publication, Art World.
There is a wonderful article about the magazine & its contributions here. I strongly urge you to read it because it tells the full tale of how forward thinking, profound & inspiring Stickley’s beliefs & work really were. These lessons are applicable today, perhaps even more so than they were 100 years ago.
Most folks think that the articles in The Craftsman were written by Stickley. Not so. He was a businessman with a large operation to oversee so he employed talented people to create his products & his P.R.
When Stickley founded The Craftsman magazine in 1901, Irene Sargent, an art historian & Syracuse University Professor, wrote nearly all of the first 3 issues & thereafter wrote at least the publication’s lead article as well as serving as managing editor & designing layouts. Her writing & the images she chose, taught the public about the American Arts & Crafts Movement & also its predecessor in Europe & in America.
Between 1901 & 1905, Sargent wrote over 80 articles for The Craftsman, shaping the taste of America. The article below, on interior design for the Craftsman house, is stated as being “Editor’s Notes” in the table of contents for the issue. I am assuming that it was written by her, but it may have been written by Stickley himself. It’s a good introduction to the subject of interior design appropriate to our bungalows. In fact, the article was an introduction to the style for most Americans, being part of the first ever published magazine.
Enjoy!
AN ARGUMENT FOR SIMPLICITY IN HOUSEHOLD FURNISHINGS, by Irene Sargent
In all that concerns household furnishings & decoration, present tendencies are toward a simplicity unknown in the past. The form of any object is made to express the structural idea directly, frankly, often almost ‘with baldness. The materials employed are chosen no longer solely for their intrinsic ‘value, but with a great consideration for their potential beauty. The qualities thus apprehended are traced to their source & then carefully developed by the skill of the craftsman.
In the eighteenth century, the French cabinet makers created charming objects suited to the palaces & castles of the old nobility. They reveled in richness of material: in woods brought from countries & colonies difficult of access; in costly gilding & other applied ornament; in fanciful painting which exquisite delicacy of handling alone saved from triviality & insignificance.
But to-day, with the idea of development everywhere dominant,—in the sciences, in educational methods, in all that furthers human intercourse, comfort & progress—we find the mood of the century impressed upon the material & necessary objects by which we are surrounded. Even our beds, tables & chairs, if planned & executed according to the newer & sounder ideas of household art, offer us a lesson taught by their form, substance & finish. We are no longer tortured by exaggerated lines the reasons for which are past divining. We have not to deal with falsifying veneers, or with disfiguring so-called ornament. We are not necessarily confronted by substances precious because of their traditional use, their rarity, &the difficulty attending their attainment.
We are, first of all, met by plain shapes which not only declare, but emphasize their purpose. Our eyes rest on materials which, gathered from the forests, along the streams, & from other sources familiar to us, are, for that reason, interesting & eloquent. We may, in the arms of our reading-chair, or in the desk before which we pass our working-day, study the sinking undulations in the grain of oak, ash, elm, or other of our native woods, & in so doing, learn the worth of patient, well-directed & skilled labor; of that labor which educates; that is: leads out & develops the hidden Values & qualities of things too often neglected because they are frequently seen.
THE END
Stickley, the father of the America Arts & Crafts Movement, lovingly interpreted our country’s aesthetic in his newly invented medium of the time, the Craftsman style. Should you wish to know more about him, I heartily suggest that you watch the wonderful documentary, Gustav Stickley: American Craftsman.
TIP: Move right along onto Part 1 of this series on interior design for the Craftsman house.
STAY IN THE BUNGALOW KNOW!!!
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Most people do not know much about the now antique wood-working machines that were used to mill the lumber for their bungalows. Eric LaVelle is a master historic preservationist who uses the old machines that he rescues from 100+ year old abandoned mills to restore the houses in his care. I am a believer in having full understanding of a subject & believe that having knowledge of the machines that helped create your bungalow is intrinsic to this understanding.
ERIC LAVELLE, MASTER HISTORIC PRESERVATIONIST, Part 1
Once again, Eric’s words are in quotes. Mine are just there, unadorned, though, if I’m rudely interrupting him, you’ll see me in brackets.
This is some background on the machines that Eric is rescuing, making construction prior to electricity possible. The majority, if not all of his articles refer to what is covered here, so please read it so that you can understanding the 
The key driver of the Industrial Revolution was the harnessing of energy. With this ability to control power, our old growth forests could be razed & milled. The logs could be turned into lumber for homes, furniture & indeed, into the factory buildings that held the mills, some of these being thousands of square feet in size.
WARNING! This post is only for those of you who want to create an authentic period interior & would like some tips on how to do so. It is not written with the purpose of changing anyone’s mind, tastes, or life decisions.
My mother had very definite ideas about interior design. I’m guessing that many of these were learned from her mother who, after growing up on a West Virginia farm, strove to become a woman of culture, refinement & taste .
had her own irrepressible style sense from a very young age & passed this on to me. “Your home reflects you- your tastes, your aspirations, your experiences. You can be inspired by the work of others, but don’t try to be others. Be yourself!”
By the time my mother was born in 1919, the family was affluent, & my ever-observant grandmother, growing ever more cultured as she attended the theater, visited museums & hob-nobbed with the social elite of her town, had become aware of quality & of the simplicity in good design. A teacher by training & by inclination, she passed these lessons on to my mother. Who passed them on to me.
Should this be the case, please do not place that TV above your fireplace. Your fireplace is a key design feature of your room, your whole house, actually. It is very likely clad in an beautiful ornamental tile & flanked by glass-doored cabinets. Perhaps there are windows with divided lites above these cabinets. These are standout period features & plopping your TV smack in the middle will- I’m going to be harsh here-it will waste them.
Gustav Stickley brought Arts & Crafts to America from Europe in the early 1900’s. He carried with him both the aesthetic & the philosophy of the Movement, & then did it his way, inspired by the simplicity of the log cabin. He was considered to be the leading authority on architecture, gardens & interior design for the Craftsman house. Should you wish to learn more about Stickley, check out 
Most folks think that the articles in The Craftsman were written by Stickley. Not so. He was a businessman with a large operation to oversee so he employed talented people to create his products & his P.R.
In all that concerns household furnishings & decoration, present tendencies are toward a simplicity unknown in the past. The form of any object is made to express the structural idea directly, frankly, often almost ‘with baldness. The materials employed are chosen no longer solely for their intrinsic ‘value, but with a great consideration for their potential beauty. The qualities thus apprehended are traced to their source & then carefully developed by the skill of the craftsman.
We are, first of all, met by plain shapes which not only declare, but emphasize their purpose. Our eyes rest on materials which, gathered from the forests, along the streams, & from other sources familiar to us, are, for that reason, interesting & eloquent. We may, in the arms of our reading-chair, or in the desk before which we pass our working-day, study the sinking undulations in the grain of oak, ash, elm, or other of our native woods, & in so doing, learn the worth of patient, well-directed & skilled labor; of that labor which educates; that is: leads out & develops the hidden Values & qualities of things too often neglected because they are frequently seen.