Ancestral Roofs

"In Praise of Older Buildings"

Saturday, July 7, 2012

It's what's inside that counts

I am finally reading John Rempel's Building with Wood, cover to cover, front to back. It's a promised return after so many visits just to check a fact or find a term.

I have just finished a large-ish writing job - a chapter on early PEC building - for a local author/publisher. I spent a lot of time photographing houses of the early decades of the 1800's, and they taught me a thing or two, standing mute and in some cases abandoned and in disrepair. They broke my heart.

But I have been most disciplined, recording "just the facts ma'am" and setting emotional responses aside. Now it's time to sit back and enjoy these old bits of old buildings, try to connect with their earnest builders, and think about the many years they stood and sheltered families, and listen to the stories they can tell.








Enjoy these silvery weathered old bits of our built heritage (our disintegrating heritage in these cases) with me?

1 comment:

  1. Katherine SedgwickJuly 20, 2012 at 8:38 PM

    Congratulations on finishing your writing project! You must let us know when it is published.

    ReplyDelete