La chasse continuer…

We saw a couple of cool places this week…and a bunch of not good.  Cool place #1 is a farm house that includes sections from the 16th, 17th, 19th and 20th centuries.  The building styles and materials have been respected throughout…some excellent artisans have worked on the house over the CENTURIES.  The walls include timber and mud (with horse hair) construction, so-called “wattle and

daub,” which have survived in great shape, as well as brick masonry and cobblestone floors.

Even the “contemporary work” was done using original techniques and materials, including chestnut timbers and flooring (naturally insect resistant) and use of pegs and dowels instead of nails. Sadly,

the house is just too big for us AND still needs a lot of systems (heat, electric, kitchen, baths) updates/upgrades to make it workable for us.  Too much.

Cool place #2 was a grand city house, owned by doctor, that also included patient examination rooms, medical classrooms and library, among MANY other rooms, spread over 5 floors!

The scale of the rooms was regal, the stair case and bannister too.  There was just so much to see.

Even the door locks and hardware were massive…and impressive.  Still, WAY too much house and WAY too much work and WAY too much on-going expense to run and maintain to make it realistic

for us to consider seriously.  But it sure is nice to visit and imagine…

Then there were the not good places.  Far too frequently, we have seen bad work (cheap materials, shoddy workmanship, BAD aesthetic choices) and/or no work at all!  We are not afraid of a big project

but there is no use throwing money at a lot of these places. SO…the search continues.  ONWARD!!

P.S.  We finally saw our first barn with old cars inside…it was the best part of the “house”…by far!