HISTORY
The foundation of Verstas was laid in 1950 when Uuno Lamminen, the owner of the Lamminen sawmill, along with his sons Hannu and Olli, decided to build a planing mill, a sawmill repair shop, and a workshop next to the Pyssykangas frame sawmill. The building was completed in 1952, and it consists of three approximately 300 m² floors.
In the basement, there was a repair shop from the very beginning, where the sawmill's equipment was repaired and built, and even today, this basement level serves as the workshop of Olli Lamminen, the village blacksmith and "Pelle Peloton" (Gyro Gearloose), who has been in the business for over 90 years. In the middle floor, a planing mill was built where the sawmill's products were processed. In the 1970s, a large planing mill was built next to the sawmill, and the middle floor mainly served as a sales warehouse for planed goods.
In the uppermost floor, there were initially the production facilities of Harjavalta Oy (now Puustelli) and later, among others. Nikusen Puutyö. In the 2000s, Lardella Oy's Puupaja operated on the middle floor. The building has a long history, and it was given a new life in 2017 when Harri Höglund bought it and named the place "Verstas" in honor of its history.
The workshop has been renovated with great care. In the renovation, there has been a determined effort to preserve the sense of history as well as the spirit related to the building and its surroundings.
Over time, fashion and preferences have changed – when the renovation began, all the interior walls of Verstas were plastered with lime mortar and painted with latex. The most labor-intensive and dirtiest phase of the renovation was sandblasting all the interior walls, which revealed the atmospheric old bricks. These are not today's sterile, identical bricks, but hand-fired and occasionally fire-damaged bricks from Pyssykangas.
Verstas was built during a time when resources were scarce and everything was utilized. Respecting originality, the old cast glass windows were preserved and restored during the renovation phase.
The ceiling and the beams in it are painted white, and the light in the space comes from nearly 100-year-old streetlights from the city of Vaasa, which hang from pieces of snow chains from an old sawmill's log truck.