Friday, December 28, 2012

Pay no attention to the moon on the roof

In the world of restoration, retaining the maximum amount of historic materials is a normal practice. When you can't do that, it's always good to reuse the material where you can, a sort of historic recycling.

Yesterday, Jason and I removed the old roof from the porch and south side of the Latham House (an 1830s coastal cottage) which will be getting new wooden shingles. The older shingles under the tin consisted of locally hand riven cypress and some newer western red cedar shingles.




The older cypress shingles were likely original to the house in terrible condition. The western red cedar shingles had been replaced about 20 years or so before being covered with tin.

These shingles had been sawn and imported from the west coast, probably Washington state. Unlike the hand riven cedar, many if the western reds were a full 12 inches in width. (It was customary to trim the width down from 4-6 inches to stop them splitting as they dried out.)

New cypress shingles are currently being sawn for us and the older shingles are heading for the old farm house.

A fair number of the western reds still have the ability to shed a few years of rain, so they are heading home with me where they will become part of the upcoming chicken coop. Can you say, recycle?




2 comments:

  1. Great recyle (and any waste will keep you warm I bet!)

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  2. The chicken coop may or may not use them as the plans for the coop keep changing. If I don't use them there, they may end up on a garden tool closet for holding the rakes and other yardwork bits. You are corrent in assuming the rest will end up in the firepit, which is used almost every day we wind down. :D

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