Finding space for baths is a nice game of ingenuity.  Perhaps there is a small bedroom that can be divided and provide baths for two main bedrooms.  Again, shifting a partition a few feet may do it.  In one old house, once a tavern, the dance hall on the second floor was reduced nearly ten feet and the space became a combination bath and dressing room.  Thus, the rural ball room was translated into a large master bedroom with all present-day appurtenances.  In another house a storage space six by eight feet became an excellent bath by having a window cut in the exterior wall.

In the all-important question of kitchen and servants’ quarters be modern from start to finish.  The old farmhouse kitchen was both living room and workroom.  It was large and cheerful.  Accordingly the reconstructed house continues it as a living room.  The new kitchen can best be located in an extension either original or new but designed to be in keeping.  Here the noises and odors of cooking will not permeate the main structure and with mouse-proof new partitions, kitchen, pantry, and servants’ quarters can be arranged so they will be logical and convenient.  Wherever possible the garage ought to be a part of the service wing for ease of access and heating in winter.

Because of the individuality of old houses, returning doors and windows to the original location is not entirely mandatory.  One here and there can be moved a little without destroying resemblance to the original.  With the plans for re-erection complete, everything is ready for a second raising of the frame.  New sills cut to the same dimensions as the old are put in place.  Then corner posts, summer and plate beams, and other principal timbers are hoisted to their proper places.  By virtue of numbering and marking with colors—­red for the ground floor, blue for the second, and black for the attic is one reconstructor’s code—­each mortice and tenon joint is put back just as it was originally and the whole frame made plumb.  Now hardwood pins driven home at its joints make the skeleton firm and solid.  Then comes the new roof of whatever type of shingles selected.  Along with it starts the work of enclosing the side walls.  These steps, of course, apply to a structure taken apart piecemeal.  With a “flaked” house, roofs and walls are returned to position as panels.  Making saw-cut cracks tight is the only remaining step.

If possible, the old studding and weather boarding are used, although, as neither will show, new material can be substituted if desired.  Similarly a rough flooring of cheap lumber is laid as a foundation for the old.  Such features as the main stairway and paneling, cleaned and repaired, are now brought in through large openings in the side walls and put in place before enclosing the frame is completed.

There are two points of view about using old window frames.  One favors using them despite lack of mechanical means for raising or lowering the sash.  The other, reasoning that many of the frames are bound to be badly weathered and not too sound, recommends new ones complete with weights and cords.  With the latter, the old effect is preserved by reproducing the exterior molding exactly and by using the original interior trim.