history of colorful wood houses and red roofs 2

Yet more ramblings of homes here. Traditional homes here, as said in previous post, are colorful and often charmingly tiny. One of my fave combinations, after black with navy trim, is red with green trim and or roof.

PHOTO Therese´s corner red and green house PHOTO

A few obvious reasons why homes were small, is they were hand built from hand hewn timbers cut down usually from the property land location, and put together with often those whose family the house was; and that up until recently Norway was extremely poor before the struck black gold (oil). YET, even once the oil industry has made them one of the richest nations, they even today still build traditional wood homes, and usually not much larger than was previously known. McMansions are not done here, as no one wants them. Stark modern is extremely popular here, as is stark modern sympathetically designed within a natural and traditional element, as is exceptionally traditional with a modern flare. But just as sought after is the small traditional home, many of which originally were wood cabins, built after WW2 after the many homes, including entire towns, were burned down or otherwise entirely destroyed during the war.

Another obvious reason homes here are even now built of small rooms, is they´re easy to heat, and winters can be fierce here! Even here, nestled snuggly within the so-called Seven Mountains which enjoys the warmth of the jet stream, that makes the temperature relatively warm, compared to how high up/close to the North Pole, winters here can still be fiercely cold and blustery. Winds get extremely strong here, and even in a location of relative security surrounded by forest, the winds can be strong enough to force water into any cracks or breaks in the solid wood homes, hence small homes, and homes built so well.

Our home, for instance, and typically, has modern version of traditional multi-wooden framed and paned windows, costing a few thousand dollars each, with insulated double or triple paned glass. This keeps out the weather, yet still has the traditional look of actual glass and actual wood. Something like this window.


Roofs are pitched at the correctly and carefully calculated angles for rain and snow to slide off easiest. Snow is heavy and could collapse a roof if it got too much to slide, and it was too difficult to pitch it off by hand, as the roof is too high from the ground. Homes here are typically 2 or 2.5 stories high. It´s not easy to broom snow off a roof you can´t reach! Our old garage roof which we´d been meaning to replace since we moved in, in 2005, collapsed last year under the stress of all the weight of the snow, as it was a heavy snow, difficult long constant winter of snow. The roof was pitched fine, but was old. It had a low pitch, and low height, which did not help with it being also dry rotted, plus several feet of packed wet snow. Course, it saved the effort of taking it down, and nothing was in the garage (it´s not really been used for cars, as it is smaller than modern cars).


Traditionally, windows were small for several reasons. They were handmade, glass panes were expensive, smaller windows meant more heat kept indoors as windows were never that efficient in past times. Nowadays, people debate between keeping the traditional look, or going for more large panes of glass which let in more daylight! Though in the dark of winter these huge panes of glass look even more bleak of a huge expanse of blackness within the darkness of lack of daylight hours. They cost less too though. I like them, because they let in all the daylight, but I like the look of the multiple tiny panes of glass paned windows.

Windows here open differently too. Some have what I´ve seen in old Antebellum homes in the US Deep South, window sashes with ropes and weights, which I like. Some open out, some open in, but usually not slide up by hand, that I´ve seen or noticed. It is unheard of to have window screens, as then the windows would not open with the current design. There is no place to put the screens, maybe the inside. Rarely ever get bugs, though wasps are the only thing that come in sometimes in summer. Hanging colored bottles with beer, will capture them, but then also the bees if the holes are not the right size.

We usually just put up with the wasps, ignore and complain about them, and shooo them towards the outdoors back out the window whence they flew!

Most homes, ours included have numerous fireplaces. Regulations now do not allow it, or new ones in cities apparently, but we live outside, and the house is old, so we get to keep ours if we want. We kept one. When we first moved in we had 3 chimney opening spaces, had two actual fireplaces, including one in our bedroom! LOVED that, so cozy! Except T was the one who had to still-asleep-in-the-night get up to throw in more firewood, as I would never wake up to do so! That was when we had no heat in the house, no central heating, and were living in it whilst also renovating it.

One night, mind you, it was so cold, that after getting all gussied up in my best romantic nightie, after realizing how cold it was as I´d forgotten to keep firewood in the fire and it had gone out also because of the sharp winds coming down the chimney continually, I growled a bit instead at him, and said something not as polite as "It´s too cold darling. I´m not taking off this duvet, blanket, comforters I´ve now wrapped myself in! * smile sweetly *!!"

Now, there´s a fancy electric box thing which heats air and blows it throughout the house to keep all nearly 3 floors (basement, floor, floor, attic, plus stairwell areas and half floors) heated warm enough to walk around completely starkers all winter and still be toasty warm!


Grass and flower topped turf roofs are simply lovely! I like them and would like to have one. In addition to their pretty looks, they also do a good job of insulating the house´s attic and rooftop area, keeping the cold out and the heat in. Many of the mailbox areas are tiny huts with grass and flower roofs.

PHOTO

There are different ways to correctly make this roof, and unless it is made correctly it will leak or worse. Some of the old homes had bark or thin wood plank roofs, so to keep it from rotting, curling up leaking, etc, they´d put one layer of turf ROOTS up....then one layer of turf the regular way roots down grass and flowers up. That is not all there is to it, it is easy but complicated, both, if you do not know what to do. In other places I´ve seen it done differently, depending upon the weather, the roof construction, the materials used for the roof construction, and other reasons. Here you have to do it however they do it, as per the weather and materials, or it will not work. They´re so pretty, especially on red homes, especially in spring or summer when those flowers are in bloom--daisies!  Many here also have heathers that bloom in cold or not so cold weather.

One of the main reasons wood is also chosen here, besides of forests here, is it breaths and moves better, in this weather too. Brick and other materials cost more to insure here, as it is not as suited for the weather here. It cracks more and is too rigid a material, for wind, rain, cold.

For those who do not realize, during most of the year it can get extremely windy or rainy, and is cool or cold here at night. That is why we generally never have need or worry about needing air conditioning. In other places I´ve lived, it could be 100F at midnight with much humidity, fantastic as far as I´m concerned, as long as I have some fans or airconditioning too if needed. Here we only get a few nights warm enough to make it too warm to sleep. And so rare is it to have hot days, it is a welcome event during summer! I like all the seasons here, and as you can tell, I´m very interested in the architecture, construction, materials, designs here, and am extremely fond of the landscape, wilderness, and what it looks like here. Especially the charming colorful wood traditionally-kept homes. I love stark modern, but mostly in respects to actual living, I prefer mostly a traditional, simple if cluttered sometimes home.

And a garden. A proper garden, with proper get your wellies on even if its raining gardening. (ah add the hyphens when time as am getting tired of typing).

Next post: GARDENING