Sticks and stones... Well hand-hewn cedar beams and antique bricks more so.
Farmdale is coming along. Each day brings a new element to life. Slowly and surely it will come together and a home - my home - will be ready to move in! I cannot wait!
Though I have lived in Middle Georgia my entire life, I have always loved A. Hays Town's architecture and his perfect capturing of the Arcadian, Creole and Louisiana vernacular. Though Farmdale is not a bayou cottage, I did take some inspiration from those fantasist, soul-stirring homes with my bricks and beams - hopefully evoking some of that Louisiana/Hays Town essence. Thankfully, my fantastic architects poised my home to adapt to such a style.
Bricks and beams are from the earth and land. These elements can be awesome bridges to connect our homes to our land, thus keeping our homes grounded, in tune with place and apropos for their settings. I love the tints and textures of the antique bricks and how they were further blended with a new brick in my blend from my friends at Cherokee Brick in Macon - still keeping it local and Southern. But these bricks tell a story...
My bricks are molded from the clay and dirt of Middle Georgia - a constitution many of us can relate too. When we boast dirt on our hands, we boast a connection to our past. These bricks are reminders of the hands before mine that were stained and dirtied and even nourished by our native soil. These bricks have heard hymns and sermons, witnessed weddings and funerals, and now they will now be a part of dinner parties, holidays and fun times for family and friends. I believe Southerners are keen on knowing our people - knowing our people's roots and the soil they run and grow in is so special too.
The bricks above the foundation are going to be painted -
I adore painted brick and had to have some at Farmdale!
Farmdale is sited in a glade within my family's wooded land. Lots and lots of oaks from live to red to water to laurel canopy the woodland terrain and large pines and cedars dot the wooded landscape - these are some of my favorite trees and a natural choice for my home.
Cedar beams (stamped with my initials mind you) will span my living room and heart pine beams from a cotton warehouse will don the ceiling in the kitchen. My floors are planed from the same heart pine beams - ancient lumber structuring a Southern agrarian mainstay in one life and giving me a floor and foundation for mine.
My back hallway - a narrow gallery - boasts the antique brick, a handsome hewned cedar beam and sturdy cedar columns. Their perfume is intoxicating - clean, woody, earthy and soulful. These sticks and stones - bricks and beams - are probably my favorite elements of the home's construction. Sure, I can't wait for fabrics and furnishings, but there's just something so everlasting and timeless and meaningful about the earth and land forming foundations for my home.
As any true Southern gent, I know my people and where they're from. Furthermore, I know my bricks and heart pine - and where they're from too... true Southern fashion.
