No one hands Dan a “Courage” badge, but I would if I could. I see him every morning, lacing up his muddy boots, adjusting his signature outback hat, kissing us good-bye, and willingly shouldering all of the hard, all of the uncomfortable, all of the slow.

The aesthetic choices that the timber framer makes on a piece-by-piece, joint-by-joint basis across an entire frame are what result in an overall creation of breathtaking loveliness, totally unique from any other structure. The frame being assembled this week is a wonderful example of this ... the art inherent in this craft.

We now experience life in large part through gossamer images shared over social media. Our connections to people and events and beauty are mostly virtual. But put out your hand to brush in passing a 10”x10” timber post on your way from the kitchen to the mudroom and be jolted into the real, the here, the now.

At the OCH shop, four-year-old Danny has his own dedicated desk filled with Lego, toy vehicles and letter puzzles, as well as a variety of findings from around the shop; scraps of wood, shop pencils, safety glasses, tape measures. There, he meets the men that surround Dan during the day, witnessing both their strength in flipping 40 foot timbers and their gentleness in speaking to him. There, he sees that work can be both dirty and dignified.

For Dan, for as long as I’ve known him, music is the default. Most days will find him on the move in his Chevy Silverado, footwells filled with dried chunks of mud, passenger seat filled with papers, and a constant stream of companionable sound flowing from the dashboard, either as a bluetooth phone call with a customer, employee or supplier, or as music.

What can be accomplished with time and little else? Answer: every single thing I want to do most.

Ogonek Custom Hardwoods’ main differentiator from our competition is the high-quality  craftsmanship we invest in every project we work on. Sadly it’s a reality of life today that we are surrounded by lower-quality things ... to the point that we many not recognize high quality when we see it or appreciate the difference. ... Through my association with OCH I am starting see the difference. And seeing it requires slowing down, looking closely, and experiencing first-hand.

OCH is interested in purchasing trees, depending on what our log inventory looks like and what projects we have coming up. But those conversations almost always involve some resetting of expectations as to how much those trees or cut logs are actually worth.

Theirs is a very special home, since it’s the first timber frame construction that Dan was part of, and where he first saw the technique up close.