Rocky Mount, NC: Enough Of Politics-Lovely Victorian Fret Work To Admire

How is your architectural IQ coming along? One of the details found in a Victorian home is beaded fretwork that you see in these photographs. If you are lucky you can find pieces in architectural salvage stores to use in your restorations. There are reproduction designs available. The REAL deal is a jewel of great price. The following photographs, will make you feel ‘more better’ than the recent posts on Councilman Knight ever could. My daughter, Claire has inherited a gorgeous curved piece of fretwork from her great grandfather’s home in Cadiz, Kentucky that has been deconstructed; the residence of Mr. & Mrs. Ben White.

Fretwork is an interlaced decorative design that is either carved in low relief on a solid background, or cut out with a fretsaw, coping saw, jigsaw or scroll saw. Most fretwork patterns are geometric in design. The materials most commonly used are wood and metal.