For Jonathon Delacour
Jonathon,
In Berkeley we had a new kitchen crafted by masters. Nicholas and his partner had learned carpentry from Japanese temple builders. They were of the persuasion that first you find the right trees for the site. Timber for the north wall will be from trees that grew on the north slope — that sort of thing… it has more to do with practical matters like the grain of the wood than it has to do with any metaphysical nonsense like the Chinese art of feng shui.
The house was old and had settled on its foundation and no angles were right angles and no ceilings were planes parallel to the floors. So it was good that the carpenters who were rebuilding the kitchen were trained in the use of Japanese hand tools.
The green marble for the back splash and the island had been rescued from the old Crocker Bank building in San Francisco. Nicholas polished it by hand. The cabinets were maple and the counters were a green formica that matched the marble and had maple nosing. The trim was immaculately joined, and looking at the ceiling you wouldn’t know that one end of the room was fully three inches higher than the other end, the crown molding was so cunningly proportioned.
When at the end of the project, we looked around and could find no flaw, none, Nicholas took a power drill and put a hole in the counter near the sink. Then he trimmed a piece of hard maple to fit the hole and tapped it into place.
“Nothing should be perfect,” he said.
