The East Derry crew has been hard at work completely rebuilding the belfry, lantern and upper lantern. The framing is complicated, and heavy. Each lantern is a separate, eight-sided tier, connected by a sweeping skirt roof. Below the lanterns, the belfry may only have four sides, but the bell itself is supported on a hip-roof…
This blog leaves a lot out. We can’t give our projects their full due here while giving them their full due out there. I’ve been especially remiss with regards to East Derry. The First Parish Project has been in progress since 2012 and includes the replacement of the undercarriage, moving the building onto a new…
For me, it was not love at first sight. The Dummer House, built in 1786, is the oldest in Hallowell. Tucked onto Dummer Lane, the building had already been moved once and was languishing under a pair of overgrown maples, awash in eau du restaurant dumpster. It’s a plank frame building, which means that the…
It is never a pleasure to break the news that a steeple should be removed to ground. It usually indicates a catastrophic level of deterioration and a total budget in six figures. We only make the recommendation when it is the best approach and the most economical. We remove a steeple when it is the most assured path…
To the crew at least, the most impressive piece of the French frame is the roof system. The roof has a very low pitch: the apex of the ridge is little more than 4′ above the tie beams. There are two continuous ridges, each about 30′ in length, that meet on top of a short…
If you are prone to feeling lazy, you’ll have to ignore the Foleys. In addition to their intense day jobs, they care for four horses, a flock of sheep, chickens, and a pack of wild dogs (it’s only two dogs, but they have a lot of energy). The French frame is the third frame we’ve…
Almost a year ago, we faced the year’s first pile of pick-up sticks: a neat but undifferentiated pile of timbers that formerly formed the French House of Kingston, NH. They were first assembled in 1804, around the time that the landmark Badger Tavern opened in Kingston, and the formerly enslaved overthrew their oppressors in the…
An enduring feature of timber frames is that they can be dismantled and re-used. A traditional barn-raising, in which a community comes together to erect a frame in one day is preceded by weeks of joiners’ labor: cutting and fitting the posts, girts and braces, plates and tie beams. With the help of many hands, or…
“We have to raise Weigand by the second cutting.” To a slicker like me, Arron was exhorting the crew to finish repairs on the enormous Brasen Hill Farm barn in time for some mysterious Pagan ritual. He was right. As soon as the roof was sheathed and papered, and before it wore metal roofing or…
This afternoon, we were more interested in boxes than a crew of cats. We spent lunch hour hand-crafting the finest eclipse-viewers in all of Berwick.