generally shingled and practically never
painted; the soft gray color they attain in weathering is sometimes
imitated in stain on new shingles.

The addition of a wing or ell brought up a new problem in roofing, and
it is this point that demands most serious attention from the remodeler.
The old builders have not always been successful in preserving the unity
of the roof line that is so essential to pleasing design. Whenever it is
possible, the new roof should be made a part of the old, and the lines
of one should run into those of the other. The pitch of the two should
be practically the same. The same type of roof must be used over all
parts of the building, although it is occasionally permissible to have a
pitched roof on an ell when the main roof is a gambrel.

Where a veranda is added, its roof line must be carefully studied and
made to seem an original part of the building, not something stuck on as
an afterthought. This problem of keeping the lines of the different
roofs in harmony is a vital one, and nowhere is there greater demand for
ingenuity and thoughtful treatment.

The question of dormers is also important. When it is desired to have a
second-story porch or sleeping-room, the dormer often supplies the
solution of this difficult problem. The earliest ones were merely a
flattening of the pitch of the roof, and this is the type that should be
used when it is necessary to add a dormer to the older farmhouses. As
the Georgian details were developed, the gable-roofed dormer was used
with the cornice moldings of porches and door frames. These dormers were
high, with a single window often having a semicircular head. They were
usually combined in groups of three and connected with each other by a
balustrade.

The exterior walls of the first houses were made of heavy boards laid
vertically on the framework, without studding. Before long, the wood was
laid horizontally, each board overlapping the one below it. This
clapboarding and siding was used without interruption through all the
various changes in other details. Much later, the shingle was adopted
for the sides of the house as well as for the roof. A larger shingle,
however, was used on the walls, with a wide exposure of surface. These
were made of pine or cypress.

Although the walls of most old houses follow a straight line from one
story to the next, there was a type, copied by the colonists from the
buildings of the mother country and used somewhat fre