Steve DeMott Loc: St. Louis, Missouri (Oakville area)

I cut it off three times and it's still to short

RodeoMan Loc: St Joseph, Missouri

Or in my case, measure once and cut twice, or thrice or.../

sourdough58 Loc: Maine

Measure twice,, Cut once.

TonyBot

My house, 125+/- years old. A marble will always roll, wherever you place it.
Granddaughters house, even older by a hundred years - c1790. Floorboards and walls, random 16" to 24" pine. Fieldstone foundation, cold cellar, 'bullet' glass windows, and rough-cut 2x8 stringers. Like a roller coaster, depending on the room.
Her husband didn't know which end of hammer to hold when they bought it.
He sure does, now!

Laramie Loc: Tempe

My first year of college my parents bought a cedar log cabin kit and had it erected on a lot they had owned for a few years. Dad did all the interior work; plumbing then had a friend check it before inspection, electric the same, then all interior walls and B grade maple floors. Beautiful house. 15-20 years later, he built a detached garage. He told me he made all the cuts with a chain saw. "I'm not so good on the finish work anymore" he told me. Both still stand.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I've come across large 2x4s when working on some houses.

I wonder if they plan to make toothpicks and wooden matches smaller.

bikinkawboy Loc: north central Missouri

Yes, that’s was the good old days of rough sawn lumber where a 2x4 was actually two inches by four inches. Like when my dad was young he was helping his uncle build a new house using green rough sawn lumber. It came corn planting time and by the time they got back to the house, they had to trim the small limbs and green leaves off of the studs.

Equus Loc: Puget Sound

My parents house was started in there late 1600's and worked on and expanded through the 1840's. There were no 2X4's in the house or the summer kitchen. Everything was substantially larger and not always consistent in size. Nothing was square or plumb and forget about completely level.

Unfortunately the carpenter that did much of the restoration was injured in a sawmill accident and had to retire. I went to visit some years later and mom still had a leak in the living room. I traced it to a rotten and thus badly positioned sill on the second floor. It was tipped back so that when it rained it dumped the water behind the stone wall of the house and let it run down into the living room. I forget the dimensions right now but do you think that I could find a piece of hardwood that was the right size to rebuild it. Fortunately a friend had a pile of old wood in his barn. I was able to find two pieces of chestnut that I could pin and glue together to make what I needed. Got it in and the problem was gone but getting wood to do the repair was a problem. I am glad that she sold that house because it was becoming more of a problem, especially since I live on the other coast and don't have all the resources that are needed to work on a house of that age.