My visit to my friend’s home was such a wonderful learning experience. The skill of making your own fiber and fabric is a tradition that is long-lost in our day and age. Today, any person who could master this art would charge highly for their fabrics and would be looked at as an artisan of the highest order. As the rich were able to buy fine imported materials from Europe. In more modern times families who used this type of fabric and dressed in the bright patterns and plaids that could be woven on a family looms were thought to be poor. The family produced the wool from their own sheep and grew the flax that would be spun into linen for the coverlets.I was amazed at the coloring and detailed patterns of the Linsey-Woolsey blankets and can only imagine the time it took to make just one of these covers. The coverlets were made by Davids Great Grandmother.

David said after our tour that with 6 people living in the 2 story, 16’X 23′ log cabin together “He thought that this desk was about the only space that his Great Grandfather had in the entire house”( and I do not doubt him one bit). Marion Cutlip designed and constructed this desk to be used in this very same house. The desk is made of poplar planks that were milled from trees that grew in the woods of the Webster County farm. It is heartwarming to know that both of these wonderful heirlooms were not only made by his family on the farm, but were made from products on that farm. Hand woven Linsey-Woolsey bed coverlets made by David’s Great Grandmother on the Webster County farm, late in the 1800’s In the end the home is the perfect balance of old and new features,that keeps its warm rustic appeal. As this was not David and Patricia’s primary home they took their time to make their dream retirement home come true. Nearly two years later Mark and his crew delivered the logs from the Lewisburg log yard to the new home site where a new foundation had been constructed.The work to construct a new log home continued over the next 5 years. By the end of the first week the 150 year old logs were dismantled, loaded and trucked away to a storage yard in Lewisburg, WV. Mark Bowe (before “ Barnwood Builder” Fame) found the project promising and within a few months had his crew (some that are still members of the “Barnwood Builders” television show today) dismantle the house. Then they found Mark Bowe the owner of “ Antique Cabins and Barns” in Lewisburg, West Virginia who would be charged with dismantling and moving the heavy logs. With some searching the couple found a nice location for the future log home outside the small town of Beverly, West Virginia. As with all houses of this age, water and bugs (termites here in W.V.) can wreak havoc on old logs. After tare down and the reconstruction of the Cutlip log home with help from Mark Bowe.īy the end of 2009 David and Patricia began the work of finding out if the logs of the house were salvageable.

Zellige tiles kitchen