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Heritage Barns

Historic Barns, Cabins, Mills & Homes

At Heritage Restorations, we preserve fine examples of 18th- and 19th-century timber frame barns, cabins, houses and mills by locating, documenting and dismantling the original buildings, then carefully restoring their hand-hewn timbers. We then restand them on your property where they can be converted into unique homes, offices, guest houses, barns or shops with all the conveniences of modern structures. Visit our site to view our portfolio of available buildings and floor plans as well as descriptions of our completed projects.

Custom Millwork using Antique Materials

Heritage Restoration builds custom trusses, doors, flooring and other architectural millwork using beautiful antique hand-hewn and rough-sawn timbers. Our millwork combines the design flexibility of new construction with the rustic beauty of antique wood. We also offer a wide variety of custom forged ironwork railings, fixtures, hinges and finishing hardware.

The Potter's House

Distinctive Handmade Pottery

At the Potter's House, we feature a line of unique, functional stoneware and earthenware pottery in a variety of sizes, shapes and colors. We form all of our pieces by hand using a combination of a potter's wheel and traditional hand-building methods. We then finish them with one of our custom glazes, resulting in an array of colors including blues, greens, browns, bronzes and reds as well as combinations of these rich, warm colors. See our gallery of pieces featuring our eleven custom glazes.

Wheel Throwing & Hand Building Basics

Visit our site to see step-by-step guides that demonstrate the making of our stoneware vessels. See the throwing of a basic vessel using a potter's wheel as well as how to build a slab cylinder by hand. Then take a virtual tour of our shop and see how we dry, glaze and fire our pieces.

Classes and Instruction

At the Potter's House, we offer hands-on classes in the craft of making pottery. Visit our site for a description of a one- day introductory class for adults who want to learn the basic techniques of shaping clay on a potter's wheel. For those who want more in-depth instruction, we offer a 5-day workshop which teaches a combination of hand-building as well as potter's wheel skills.

School of Homesteading

Sponsored by the Center for Essential Education

Discover the Crafts & Skills of Traditional Agrarian Life

At the School of Homesteading at Brazos de Dios, we offer a curriculum that includes gardening, homesteading, traditional crafts and other essential self-sustaining skills. Our curriculum consists of both workshops, with an emphasis on hands-on instruction and skill building, and seminars or classes that are primarily lecture oriented. Our workshops are project oriented and upon completion students will be equipped to implement and practice their new skills at home.

Our teachers, who are experienced craftsmen, farmers and gardeners, are well-qualified to share their knowledge and abilities. To you and your children, 17 years or older, we offer these homesteading crafts and skills workshops. We invite you to participate.

School of Woodworking

Sponsored by the Center for Essential Education

Discover the Art of Hand Tool Woodworking

At the School of Woodworking, we offer a complete curriculum of hand tool woodworking classes. Whether you attend our beginning seminar or progress one level at a time through our full course of hands-on workshops, you'll see not only how traditional hand woodworking methods simplify the craft of working wood, but how viable they are when you incorporate them into your woodworking life.

In our workshops, we cover a variety of important topics to establish foundational skills in hand woodworking for the beginning woodworker through advanced levels of woodworkers. Students can choose to attend separate workshops, or, for those who travel from out of town and prefer to attend a full week of intensive hand tool woodworking, we combine the same workshops into multiple day comprehensive courses. We offer these classes year-round at Homestead Craft Village in central Texas.