If you'll indulge me. My mom's family had a cabin in western Minnesota that was our destination when we went on a "big vacation". A great uncle of mine owned a sawmill and he had bought 40 acres on Games Lake in the mid 50's. I'm guessing that he cut some lumber off of it to sell but it was never clear cut. Mom's dad ended up with the property and he used the property as a wood lot for firewood to heat the house on their quarter section that he farmed.

Uncle Frank did cut enough lumber to build a cabin on the property. He made wainscoting out of white oak and it was on the inside of the exterior walls in the cabin. It measures 2" x 5" x 36" and was one of he key architectural features of the cabin. When the cabin was sold to the Minnesota DNR with the proviso that the land never be developed commercially we were told that the DNR didn't want the cabin and was going to tear it down.

Brother Rick couldn't bear to see all the waste of the interior wood so he rented a trailer, drove to Minnesota from Texas and stripped out as much lumber as he could haul back to Texas. I've got a dozen or so pieces of the oak and every so often I'll find a use for it.

I cut up one of the pieces to make the stems for the boat that I'm working on. There is something satisfying and symmetrical in re-using and repurposing things in life. The cabin brought a lot of happiness to our family for more than 60 years and now part of the cabin can live on in this boat.