In any rural community of the past, if one came across a smiddy, there was every likelihood of finding a joiner's workshop nearby. The work of the smith and the joiner or vricht to northeasters, went hand in hand as in cart work, wheel work and many other country services of the time where the joiner did the woodwork and the smith supplied all the metal work.
Over the last quarter of the eighteenth century the name of George Stevenson in Parkhill crops up in the records both for his woodworking skills and his service to the community. He was ordained to the eldership on 23rd July 1775 and the last entry on 8th June 1800 reads 'Mortcloth to Geo. Stevenson, one of the elders.'
Following George's death, Charles Leys, who was born at Bendauch in the parish of Dyce to Charles Leys, farmer and Jane Chalmers, became the joiner. He married the gardener's daughter from Kemnay House, Christian Winehouse on 14th April 1811, and between them they raised a family of five; Elspet, Alexander, Anne, Christian and Charles. Little is known of the life of Charles Leys other than his recorded death on 30th January 1865 at the age of 87 years.
The dwellings of both the smith and the vricht were low thatched cottages set along the roadside and with steading attached. The joiner's workshop stood apart from the dwellings on the corner of the feu next to where Louisville now stands. It was a timber framed building with a red clay pantiled roof and contained a saw pit. In the days before powered machinery logs were cut into planks by setting them over the pit and two men operated a long saw, one on top of the log, the other down below in the pit. This building stood until the late 1920s when it was eventually demolished.
The dwelling house was replaced in the late 1860s to a design prevalent of the times, being a simple oblong building some 14 feet wide and thirty four feet long inside. There were no fixed partitions, the rooms being separated by box beds, with the kitchen at one end, the room at the other and a milkhouse in the middle. Several of this type of building are situated on the left of Paradise Road in the village and it is believed that the joiner's house may have been the last to be constructed, as the blacksmith's house, built two or three years later is to a far higher standard and improved design. The 'bire' was adjoining but unconnected and was 12 feet long with three stalls for cattle. Next there was a turnip shed three feet wide While the barn completed this wing of the building. At right angles to the barn was the workshop, separated only by a wooden partition. The workshop was some sixteen feet wide and twenty four feet long and lit by four windows, two on each side wall and an eight feet wide door in the gable with an earthen floor which sloped from the barn to the door by about a foot. An unfloored loft was used for storage of wood and other commodities. The loft over the barn was used for storing paint which at that time was mainly in powder form and was lined under the flooring with felt to prevent contamination of the cattle feed stored below.