If door and window frames are so loose that they can be lifted out of the side walls, the situation is serious.  Putty and paint are of no avail.  Rebuilding them is essential.  It is extravagant business trying to heat a house with wind whistling in around doors and windows.

If the fabric of the side walls is of shingle, clapboard, or other types of wood, is the material sound enough to warrant repainting or must it be renewed?  The object of paint is to close the small cracks and preserve the wood.  An old house that has gone many years without painting will absorb much more than a new one, but it is surprising what can be accomplished with two or three coats of paint on siding so weathered as to seem worthless.  Besides, a new exterior robs an old house of some of its charm, so preserve the old if possible, architects, carpenters, and contractors to the contrary.

Where walls are of stone or brick, the mortar of the joints has probably so disintegrated under wind and rain that repointing is indicated.  Also, frosts may have heaved individual stones or disintegrated bricks so they must be reset.  Expect this in places where down-spouts have leaked for years.  If the walls have settled badly, lintels or sills of doors and window openings may be cracked and need renewing.  Sometimes an old house has exterior walls of plaster.  These are both picturesque and rare.  Patch cracks and spots where it has come loose from the lath.  Old plaster has a texture and patina that modern stucco cannot simulate, so preserve it if possible.

Indoors, there are many things to be observed and appraised but fireplaces come first.  A country home without facilities for open fires is as uninviting as one without trees and flowers.  Expect to find the fireplaces disused and closed with fireboards or bricks.  Sometimes the mantels have been removed and new flooring laid over the hearthstones.  Some detective work around the logical locations will tell whether fireplaces have been torn out or just concealed.  If mantels are missing, look for them in the attic or on the rafters of a shed.  More than one fine old mantel has been rescued from such a hiding place.  We know of one fireplace complete with crane and iron cooking utensils that reposed for fifty years or more behind an unsuspected opening covered with lath and plaster.

Where original fireplaces have been torn out and chimneys intended only to serve stoves put in place, two courses are open.  The more costly is rebuilding chimney and fireplaces according to indications of original dimensions.  The alternative is a Franklin stove, a combination of stove and fireplace, which can be installed and connected to the existing chimney at a very moderate expense.