Design Insights

Quite a while back, when I was working as a carpenter for a small contractor near Boone, NC, my hometown, we worked on a foundation for a log cabin.

It was mid-December, about 25 degrees Fahrenheit and driving snow. This contractor, generally of foul mood, was singing, “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!” at the top of his lungs. It was indeed, and the temperature certainly felt like it. Not a good day to be laying cinderblocks.

A mason who had retired from Florida to the mountains was directing the work and setting the blocks for the corners of the foundation, leaving the contractor and the other carpenter to lay the blocks between the corners. As carpenters, not masons, we were under the mason’s direction; I was relegated to mixing the mortar, while a l