This photo was taken in Western North Carolina.

[JustJohn or JJ]

Fall is coming. Tomorow is the First day.

This photo was taken in Western North Carolina.

[karl]

J.J.

Another rustic masterpiece of photo, for this has the elements of character mixed with technical expertise in a manner as a whole. The composition is as of a painting, very well laid out with thoughtful rendition.

Thank you once again for presenting..

Karl

[jeanne]

Sept 21, 2014 4:19:28 GMT -7 JustJohn or JJ said:

Fall is coming. Tomorow is the First day.

This photo was taken in Western North Carolina.

I took a trip to West Virginia (my first) this summer to visit my daughter. I saw many old houses built in this manner, and I have been wondering if there is a name for that style of architecture that has plank walls with "plaster" (?) filler between the planks. It's not a New England thing at all, it's definitely southern.

Does anyone know what it's called?

Jeanne

[Jaga]

Jeanne, beautiful picture. We also have some Fall in Idaho Falls. It is beautiful but it is a bit sad that soon there would be no leaves on the trees.
You are probably right that this architecture is southern. I remember similarly built chimneys in Texas.

[pieter]

Wonderful image again of Spring in Northern-America. I love the style of the house, with it's nature stone and wood construction.

[kaima]

Sept 21, 2014 15:14:50 GMT -7 jeanne said:

Sept 21, 2014 4:19:28 GMT -7 JustJohn or JJ said:

Fall is coming. Tomorow is the First day.

This photo was taken in Western North Carolina.

I took a trip to West Virginia (my first) this summer to visit my daughter. I saw many old houses built in this manner, and I have been wondering if there is a name for that style of architecture that has plank walls with "plaster" (?) filler between the planks. It's not a New England thing at all, it's definitely southern.

Does anyone know what it's called?

Jeanne

Jeanne,

This is a log cabin or log house construction typical of one American style. There are many ways to build and finish a log cabin, and the squared corners shown here are one style. The outer walls are flattened
with an adze and the gaps between the logs is "chinked" or filled with a material to better weatherproof the wall. In frontier days this may have been moss from the woods, or straw-mud mixture, and today there are commercial compounds, as appears to be in this case.

That all together gives the house the look of being made of planks with stucco or cement in between.

If you do a google search using "images" you will have a wide variety of photos to show you what this looks like.


shows a drawing of how the "chinking" is done. In this sketch the logs have not been shaved to the flat "plank" style shown in the original photo.

Here is a link that will show less idealistic views
antiqueamericanlogcabins.com/old-log-cabins-for-sale.html

Then a link with modern corner styles (same as traditional corner styles, but with modifications for horizontal log joints)
www.wholesaleloghomes.com/logs-for-log-homes/corner-styles/



www.alhloghomes.com/rustic-new.html

[kaima]

Sept 21, 2014 4:19:28 GMT -7 JustJohn or JJ said:

Fall is coming. Tomorow is the First day.

This photo was taken in Western North Carolina.

This and many other log construction styles were not exclusive to America, as we may tend to think. I have seen many styles in America and Europe, and they certainly borrowed from one another, or simply there are only so many ways you can put logs together to build a house! Here are some examples from the skansen (open air museum) at Nowy Sancz. I visited this summer, and found it a grand display. These buildings were moved in from surrounding communities, many Lemko, some Goral, some Polish (all ethnic Polish groups living in Poland ... and some in Slovakia).

Sądecki Park Etnograficzny


This is a white washed log house. Straw/thatched roofs were quite popular until insurance companies became widespread, and the cost of insurance was much lower for metal or shingle roofs, so the change was made.
Warto zobaczyć - skansen-wnętrze



a view on the inside, where you can see the "chinking and slab" appearance in the interior!

This is a storage house, perhaps for grain.


A photo of a building and a church, both of log, with the church clad in vertical planks to protect the logs from the weather.



Here is a very typical house for the mountain regions, with living quarters at the far end and animal and farm rooms at the near end. 200 or 300 years ago the 'nobility' also rarely lived in 2 or 3 room houses. Mansions were a relatively new invention.



Finally, a favorite simply for the beauty. A two story store house, as I remember it, and if I understand the title:



Zabytkowy spichrz - skansen Nowy Sącz
The historic granary - museum Nowy Sacz or is it
Zabytkowy spichlerz - skansen Nowy Sącz

[Jaga]

Kai,

I love these Polish "chata" (strawroof house). THey are cute to look at but not to live in....

thanks for explaining how the log house works.

[jeanne]

Kaima,

Thanks for the photos and for your comments.

Living in New England, I'm pretty familiar with log cabins, but I think what struck me the most about the West Virginia houses was how W-I-D-E the chinking was between the planks. It gives them a very distinctive appearance that you don't see in other older, rustic houses. I thought perhaps there is a word to describe that particular look!

It was pretty interesting to go in some of the older houses which had clapboards on the outside, and find a room with a "plank & chinking" (my phrase) wall...a dead giveaway that a very old house had been added onto and remodeled over time...

Jeanne

[kaima]

Sept 24, 2014 16:36:53 GMT -7 jeanne said:

Kaima,

Thanks for the photos and for your comments.

Living in New England, I'm pretty familiar with log cabins, but I think what struck me the most about the West Virginia houses was how W-I-D-E the chinking was between the planks. It gives them a very distinctive appearance that you don't see in other older, rustic houses. I thought perhaps there is a word to describe that particular look!

It was pretty interesting to go in some of the older houses which had clapboards on the outside, and find a room with a "plank & chinking" (my phrase) wall...a dead giveaway that a very old house had been added onto and remodeled over time...

Jeanne

I can understand the confusion because the slab side of the log was so prominent. I had to look at the corner joints to be sure myself. I built buildings in Alaska and in Europe, and have visited many log buildings in both places, often looking at the details of construction. What I can tell from the history is that the development of log houses in Europe and in America largely paralleled each other, of course with the original 1600's technology coming from Europe. The choice of fitting logs, joints, and development of chimneys seemed to run side by side, say with smoke holes in the ceiling and roof preceding chimneys, and "scientific" chimney form to reduce heat loss following still.

The large logs and joints I see as a matter of economics, as is log construction in the first place. Saw mills or hand saw pits for sawing planks may have existed, but the time and effort put into sawing the logs was needed to plant food and feed the family, and a thick log (or skinny one for that matter, but forests had to b cleared and thick trees were common) provided shelter and insulation. That was a joke on the 'nobility' of Europe, as they moved up from simple one room houses similar to the peasants to larger houses built of other materials, that often the new materials did not keep the warmth in winter as well as logs did!

Fitting the logs, even today, remains an expensive and time consuming job. Even so, the logs move with the weather, moisture and shrinkage, so chinking the joints, especially with historic materials, was a periodic job, or one with high maintenance over the initial years. So fitting the slab sided logs with large spaces between the layers that had to be chinked was a matter of time, expense, and demands to complete the hhouse and move on to other life-critical jobs to survive. Then of course style comes into the picture, as we can see in the beautiful picture that started this thread.

In Poland and Slovakia as well as America, choice of building materials depended upon what was to be had in the neighborhood; logs, large upon initial clearing, smaller in later constructions as the large trees were gone; in deforested areas, then local materials of stone, woven stick mats set between load carrying timbers (Half Timbered or Tudor style) and then plastered with various materials (mud, straw, manure all strengthened the plaster / stucco). Thatched roofs were a matter of economics as well, perishable after a few years but better in areas where straw or reeds were available in quantity. Thatching disappeared in part when insurance became a reality, and the expense of new materials was justified by cutting own on house fires.

I will close this posting and follow it with posting(s) dedicated to some of the methods of Polish-Slovakian houses through time. I was amazed at the solidity of some of the neolithic house reconstructions I have seen. I surprised one museum curator by noting the resemblance of a sunken-floored house in Slovakia with the Eskimo winter houses I have seen in Alaska. Of course the material used for the superstructure was different!

Kai

[kaima]

This is one style of log house that was built in hilly, forested parts of Slovakia & Poland. With the barn and animals in the lower section, the family living upstairs took advantage of the warmth the animals gave off. This style was occasionally built at least to the beginning of WW I.



* * * *
Directly from Poland, not trying to keep any chronological sequence, is

Neolithic settlement reconstructed
20.08.2013 12:12
A neolithic settlement in Biskupin, north central Poland, is being reconstructed with the aid of EU funding.



Work continues on a long-house, Biskupin. Photo: PAP/Tytus Zmijewski

The project is being carried out as an extension of the Open Air Archaeological Museum at the site.

“Biskupin's archaeological reserve is not only one of the most famous museums of its kind in Poland, but also in Central Europe,” said Piotr Calbecki, the Kuyavian-Pomeranian province's elected assembly leader (marshal), in an interview with the Polish Press Agency (PAP).

“This place has gained a well-deserved reputation, thanks to consistent development... and we are now using the opportunity to enrich the site,” he said.

The remains of a neolithic settlement were first discovered in 1934 by local teacher Walenty Szwajcer. Archaeological work began the following year, led by Professor Jozef Kostrzewski (1885-1969).

The mock settlement currently being constructed includes long-houses of the kind that existed 6000 years ago. Furthermore, plants that were typical of the time will be grown on plots near the houses.

The entire investment, including a new tourist centre, will cost 4.3 million zloty (1 million euros), over a quarter of which came from EU funds.

The opening of the new sections of the museum is scheduled for 2014
* * * *

As an example of my reference to the plastering over of woven sticks, there is this modern reconstruction and experiment:



* * * *
Finally, a reconstruction closer to home again, on the western border of Slavic settlements, earlier settled in the stone age, and currently within Germany.

Country: Germany Era(s): Palaeolithic, Neolithic



At Randau, an outskirt of Magdeburg, artefacts of Neolithic origin were found and secured during World War II. In the late 1990s, the idea came up to reconstruct the place. The city Magdeburg offered workforce and the Arbeitsamt covered costs.

Soon an Association was found who is now running the archaeological open air museum. The support from the population of Randau is important and it includes the theatre association, the local fire department, the army and local craftspeople.

The over 2 hectares large Stone Age Village is situated along a popular cycle road Hamburg-Dresden on the right bank of the Elbe. One of the Randau "Schönfelder" longhouses measures (LxBxH) 21.3 x 5.5 x 5.6 m. There are no windows in the wattle and daub walls – the estimate is that up to 30 people might have been living in this house. The original house is 4,500 years old. The village also has a reconstruction of a Linear Bandceramic (LBK) house of 7,500 years ago. Besides that the village has a palisade and small other buildings. It was attempted to build everything using original materials and techniques – the dimensions still impress today. The wooden constructions show that the Neolithic construction techniques using post into the earth were firm – the major way of construction has only been replaced in the Middle Ages.

* * * *

Why were log houses so late in coming? That is easy to rationalize when we consider most of what is shown above is stone age technology. Even with a stone axe, cutting down a single tree would be quite a daunting task. In today's perspective, simply too expensive; unaffordable.

[kaima]

Sept 21, 2014 4:19:28 GMT -7 JustJohn or JJ said:

Fall is coming. Tomorow is the First day.

This photo was taken in Western North Carolina.

I am sitting in my sister's back yard in small-town Willoughby, Ohio.The hardwood trees are changing colors, the buzzards are lighting in the neighbor's back field for their evening gathering, and the resident groundhog ran to safety under the tool shed. It is a comfortable 19C (67F). This is a real nice place to come in the fall. (away from the traffic, of course!)

Here is a typical Honest Ohio Groundhog:



and a typical dishonest, weather predicting Pennsylvania Groundhog:



with his prepared excuse:



Here is a news story that could apply to most any year:


CNN) — Punxsutawney Phil lied.

That’s what a prosecutor in Ohio says. He has filed a criminal “indictment” against the famed groundhog, who, year for year on February 2, emerges from his burrow at Gobbler’s Knob to predict whether spring will come early or winter will linger.

If he sees his shadow, it means six more weeks of chill. If not, short sleeves are days away.

This year, Phil got it wrong, and it’s not the first time.

* * * *
Changing to the other story, here are the Ohio buzzards.