Piatra Şoimului HOUSEHOLD , Neamţ county, sec. the nineteenth
The hearth of Piatra Șoimului Village is found in a woody hill area that descends towards the lower valley of Bistrița River, south of the city of Piatra Neamț. The villagers worked mainly in the forest and rafted logs, but they also bred cattle and cultivated cereals, linen and hemp.
The house, built at the end of the 19th century, has a stone base, plastered and whitewashed walls made of fir beams, a gradual sloped hip roof, a covering made of shingles rounded at the bottom in the shape of “duckbill”, and two dormers (“eyes”) through which the smoke was evacuated. It is intresting to note that the house’s former owner, villager Costică Arhip, participated in the year 1936 to its transfer into the museum.
The building is surrounded on three sides by a veranda with fretted parapet and pillars decorated “with flower” and has four rooms: the median foyer (“hall”), the living room (“small house”), the guest room (“large house”) and a pantry (“chiler”) in the back with direct exterior access. The “small house”, destined to the daily activities, has a large stove and hearth for cooking, a dish shelf for cookware and utensils, a bed covered with striped carpets, and the loom and the specific textile house industry tools ready for work (the hank reel, the distaff, spindles).The festive look of the “large house” is given by its furniture (the table, the dowry chest, the beds), its decorative fabrics that dress the walls (wall carpets, carpets, towels) and the festive dress placed on the clothes rod, above the bed. Besides the inventory specific to the textile home industry, one can find also two of the tools destined for log rafting: the spike pole and the peavey.
