If only
they had stayed
Let's be honest: this work begins in a bittersweet place. Every year, dozens of old wooden houses in the Black Sea region fall empty. Heirs move away, upkeep gets harder, and one day a demolition order comes through to make way for concrete. We would rather those houses stayed standing.
Where we can't change the decision, we save the wood. Before the excavator arrives, we take down the roof, the beams and the floorboards by hand, number them and bring them to Assos. Chestnut that was headed for the stove ends up on a living-room wall; a granary lid becomes a dining table.
You could call it recycling. To us it's simpler than that: boards that lived through a house's winters, its rains and its crowded tables go on living in another home.
We record the village and the house every salvaged piece comes from.
