Rural Maine Architecture

Dear Diary,

I love the simplicity of rural New England architecture. There is a purity and homespun honesty to it. People make do with what they have here in Western Maine. When I first bought my little farm house back in 1995, they had tacked up an empty canned ham tin above the back door light to keep the rain off it!

This is a photograph of a friends farm house not far from mine. The lovely soft colors are another example of "making do" with what's at hand. Our town runs a paint collection service where people can drop off unused paint. These ingenious people mixed many colors together, whatever was left there, until they had enough paint to paint their house. These are the colors that they got from all the recycled paint! Custom country colors the old fashioned way! Who needs Home Depot?!

"Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without." - Boyd K. Packer