I've been a craftsman for most of my life. A craftsman is a person who likes to make things with their hands, mostly things that are useful for a certain purpose. In my case, it has come down to mostly architectural components for the older home.
Its a niche that I fell into when I was on a painting crew. I was up on a ladder painting a house, when I saw some carpenters come to the house I was working on. They started to remove this beautiful wide trim around a window, and proceeded to remove the siding too. I asked them what they planned to do. They told me that they can't match this old style, so they are going to change it to the new style. I saw them basically ruin the look of that facade all because "they" couldn't fix it. I knew that I could fix it, and thats when I started on this journey of older home restoration. Since that time, I have completed hundreds of jobs, all of them replicating or maintaining the original look of those that first created them. I also try to use vintage lumber, vintage glass in windows and even the same building techniques in many of my projects.
Much of this work involves not only understanding construction techniques but also involves an understanding of how to make it last for many decades due to fluctuations in the weather, adverse conditions. What is the best primer, caulk & paint? The choice of wood one has access to. We no longer have easy access to the old growth forests of yesteryear, and no longer have lead based oil paint, two things that helped vintage house components last for decades upon decades, So now we have to see what we do have access to, what primers, caulks and paints are compatible or even better. Exploring new materials is a constant, however there is much to learn from our craftsman ancestors. They brought lots of knowledge with them from the old country, and it is largely due to that knowledge that many of our fine vintage homes are still going strong today.