Thousands of years ago - long before wise King Solomon built his famous Temple from the cedars of Lebanon - The North American Aboriginal people along the lush, mist-drenched North Pacific Coast used tall, majestic cedars as a mainstay of their culture. They split wide boards of cedar for their shelters and tribal long-houses, and for their burial coffins. They fashioned dug-out canoes from sections of cedar trees. They wove the stringy bark into blankets and clothing, and used the aromatic cedar boughs for bedding. Their most spectacular use of cedar, however, was the distinctive carved totem poles - weird and grotesque obelisks commemorating long-past tribal events.
Because of it's importance to them, the Aboriginal people called these cedars "trees of life".
Western Cedar, Thuja Plicata, has played an important role in the building of America during the past century - particularly in the form of shingles and shakes. They have graced the exteriors of countless thousands of homes, from modest cottage to stately mansion.
The main reason for cedar's enduring popularity in shingle and shake form is its long-lasting beauty - its rich earthy colors, its warmth, its subtle patterns of texture.
Especially today, in an era of machine made synthetics, it is this natural warmth and visually satisfying richness, harkening back to an older, more relaxed time, that continues to make Western Cedar shingles and shakes so increasingly popular with discriminating architects, builders and homeowners.
Few things about a house reflect the good taste of the homeowner or the organizing presence of the architect as thoroughly as a roof of cedar shingles. The versatility of shingles makes them a perfect material for all styles and settings - everywhere, adding a complimentary touch of rich, warm colour and lasting sophistication.
Strong shadow lines and rich, thatch-like textures typify the easy-to-care for roof of cedar handsplit shakes. Each individual shake blends smoothly into the whole to create a distinctive pattern that offers unique effects of warm, rustic simplicity and quiet, well-defined elegance.
Although homeowners may think of cedar shake and shingles as a roofing material exclusively, both offer many exciting possibilities when used on exterior and interior walls. In fact, cedar is probably the only material that can be used to good advantage over an entire home - to pull the roof and walls together to form one decisive, continuous impression of good design alive with rich visual appeal.
CEDAR......... To touch the earth.
Warm, enduring cedar shakes and shingles. No other material has the ability to tap the back-to-earth appeal in commercial construction like cedar.
We need it. With todays machine age synthetics, artificiality and design clichés, the sure elegance of cedar is one of the best investments you can make.
For cedar touches the heart and soul of man
as it has for thousands of years.
When you use cedar you are joining a lineage of life that began with the North American Aboriginal people of the lush, rain-forested regions of the Pacific Northwest. The Aboriginal people called this magnificent, towering cedar "The Tree of Life". A whole culture was built around it.
The wood is permeated with natural preservatives that make cedar long lasting. Aboriginal people used cedar to build long-houses, dugout canoes and sculptu totems. Even the stringy bark was woven into clothes and blankets. That same appeal for naturalness exists today. cedar shakes and shingles can make a bank look friendly, a shopping center elegant or a corporate headquarters less corporate. Let cedar soften the lines of your building as it did 200 years ago.
CEDAR ENDURES
source: http://www.watkinsawmills.com/
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