Fig. 14.—Outside Brace.
The frame-work of a building is often revealed in the room in a way that would delight the heart of an Eastlake. Irregularities in the form of a stick are not looked upon as a hindrance in the construction of a building. From the way such crooked beams are brought into use, one is led to believe that the builder prefers them. The desire for rustic effects leads to the selection of odd-shaped timber. [Fig. 7] represents the end of a room, wherein is seen a crooked cross-piece passing through a central upright, which sustains the ridge-pole.
In the finish of the rooms great care is shown in the selection and preparation of the wood. For the better rooms the wood is [pg 25] selected as follows: First, a stick of timber is sawed ([fig. 16]),—the central piece (A) being rejected as liable to split. Second, in the round upright post that in most instances forms the front of the shallow partition that divides one end of the best room into two bays or recesses, a deep groove is cut, to admit the edge of the partition (fig. 17). By this treatment the wood is not so apt to check or split.
Fig. 15.—Ornamental Brace.
Special details of the room will be described in other chapters. It may be well to state here, however, that in the finish of the interior the daiku, or carpenter, has finished his work, and a new set of workmen, the sashi-mono-ya, or cabinetmakers, come in,—the rough framing and similar work being done by the carpenter proper. Great care is taken to secure wood that matches in grain and color; and this can be done only by getting material that has come from the same log. In the lumberyard one notices boards of uniform lengths tied up in bundles,—in fact tied up in precisely the same position that the wood [pg 26] occupied in the trunk before it was sawed into boards ([fig. 18]). So with other wood material,—the pieces are kept together in the same manner. One never sees in a lumber-yard a promiscuous pile of boards, but each log having been cut into boards is securely tied without displacement. As the rooms are made in sizes corresponding to the number of mats they are to contain, the beams, uprights, rafters, flooring-boards, boards for the ceiling, and all strips are got out in sizes to accommodate these various dimensions. The dimensions of the mats from one end of the Empire to the other are approximately three feet wide and six feet long; and these are fitted compactly on the floor. The architect marks on his plan the number of mats each room is to contain,—this number defining the size of the room; hence the lumber used must be of definite lengths, and the carpenter is sure to find these lengths at the lumber-yard. It follows from this that but little waste occurs in the construction of a Japanese house. Far different is it with us in our extravagant and senseless methods of house-building. In our country, a man after building a wooden house finds his cellar and shed choked to repletion with the waste of his new house, and for a year or more at least has the grim comfort of feeding [pg 27] his fireplaces and kitchen stove with rough and finished woods which have cost him at the rate of four to eight cents per square foot!