FIGURE 66.
Having seen in the above sketches some of the notions which colonial builders had for finishing the important rooms in a house, we will look at photographs of two fully paneled rooms, one plain and the other elaborately carved.
[Figure 67] is an interior from the Lane house, Nixonton, shown as an example of a simple, fully paneled room. This Nixonton house is the second Lane house to be discussed in this study; the first was Wakefield, the Joel Lane dwelling in Raleigh. Our photograph shows one of three rooms from the Nixonton Lane house, as now installed in the Carolina Room at the University of North Carolina. This is the section of the University library which contains books, pamphlets, old photographs and newspapers, all referring to North Carolina. It seems appropriate that the Lane interiors should be at this center for studies of North Carolina history and culture. The installation was accomplished under the direction of Thomas Waterman, student and author of works on North Carolina architecture.
The over-all design of the room shown consists of panels set in a lattice of vertical and horizontal strips. Window height determines the three-part division of the wall—tall vertical panels in the middle, and short horizontal panels above and below. This scheme is repeated in smaller scale at the mantel. The emotionally important fireplace is given a few further touches of embellishment—a carved mantel shelf and pilasters at the edges above. (A pilaster is a rectangular support treated as a column with a base, shaft, and capital.)
FIGURE 68. INTERIOR OF THE LANE HOUSE, NIXONTON, AS INSTALLED IN THE CAROLINA ROOM, IN THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA.
[Figure 68] is inserted into our account at this point to aid in discussion of a special beauty in this room, the expression of a craftsman-builder. The drawing shows a section of the wall in the photograph. In his actual construction of the paneling, it appears that the craftsman followed these steps: 1st) erected uprights marked 1 and 1, which rise all the way from floor to ceiling, corresponding to the posts which frame door and window; 2nd) cut and fit the strips marked 2 and 2, which fit neatly between the uprights; 3rd) erected the secondary upright marked 3; 4th) fitted in the short pieces marked 4, the location of these strips being determined by the framing of the window. The above sequence of steps is the natural, rule-of-thumb way to proceed; the craftsman does not need a blue print—or even a ruler. Thus the wall expresses the craftsman-builder at work, suggests his simple procedures and his delight with his material, wood, whose satiny surface is brought out in the room.
FIGURE 68.
