timber-framed beauties

There are many many beautiful timber-framed houses in the area and I actually live in one myself. Reason enough to blog about it.

From the 12th century until the late 19th century timber-framing was the most common way of building in Central Europe. The main support of the building is a (most times) visible frame of timber. The spaces between the timber frames are filled with wooden stakes, straw and clay, in later times also with bricks. Nowadays homeowners of timber framed houses paint the timber in beautiful colors (mainly red, black and brown, but also blue) and put white stucco on the spaces in between the frames.
The different shapes of the timber are references to the epoch the house was build, profession of the former owners and many other things like denomination, etc.

Against harassments like fire, termites and mold, timber-framed homes have many advantages even in our times (e.g. insulation, energy effinciency, newer timber-framed constructions are very resistant to earthquakes,...).

The slideshow shows houses close to my home.