Berbeşti Household, Maramureş, 1775
Coming from the Valea Marei, the household of Pop Gheorghe Tomanu from the village of Berbești is representative for the popular architecture in the eighteenth century. Next to the house, as a whole are the stables with a shovel, the "basket" for corn, "colejna" for sheltering firewood and tools, as well as "Corfa whisper", an ingenious construction with a mobile roof. The annexes and objects inside illustrate the main occupations of the inhabitants of the area: cattle breeding, agriculture and work in forest.
The constructions of the Berbești household, rebuilt in the Village Museum in 1961, are erected on stone foundations, with massive beams carved in oak wood and have roofs with fast slopes and dranite coverings. The ensemble is surrounded by a fence braided from the hazelnuts with a shingle roof and presents at the entrance a monumental gate dated in 1903 and cracked with mastery. Among its decorations, we notice the sun and the moon, the human face, the hand, the oak leaf, the twisted rope, the "collage", etc. Within the house, it draws the attention of the "beam of the craftsman" on which the year of lifting ("1775") and the name of the master ("Pașco de Sălaje") were carved.
The plan of the house comprises three rooms: the living room ("house"), the cold tin and food room, lined along an open pillar, with pillars carved and united by arches. The room is equipped with a fireplace with a furnace, oven and "pichici", a place arranged near the stove that the peasants could rest in the cold winter days. The interior is characterized by a simple and functional furniture, with the bed placed on one side, the laves placed at a right angle and the table with chairs in the center of the room. The peak with polychrome fabrics above the bed, the wooden utensils, the plates and ulcers in the Vama ceramic center, worked in bright colors, and the wool fabrics painted in vegetable colors decorative the house.
