This book is not intended as a technical treatise. It is addressed primarily to the general reader having an interest in house building or to those who have in mind building for themselves. What are known as " half-timber" buildings are equally indigenous to England, France and Germany.---Half-timber work, or as it is often called, " black-and-white," is sometimes defined by English writers as that sort of building in which the first story is masonry and of which the second story only is timbered; when the whole building is timbered it is properly called " all-timbered." This is not the commonly accepted idea of most architects, who understand by the term "half-timber" that the whole or part of the building is constructed with a timber frame filled in with brick, mortar, or something of that sort, that produces the effects of " black" stripes on a white wall. This is " black-and-white" work, or, if looked at from the builder's point of view, half timber and half filling.
