Old Cape Cod Kitchens

Having grown up in leafy Dover, 15 miles from Boston, loved old houses, my grandmother’s grandfather a Hopkins from Truro, with various other Old Comer’s mixed in, I can say with great authority that no ‘GIRDERS’ were ever in any old Cape kitchen! Post and beam was the old, time-honored, method, as old as England itself. The name ‘girders’ comes from steel construction. What misinformed nincompoop wrote those egregiously incorrect words? What an idiot!!

Not always made of steel, girder is the term used to denote the main horizontal support of a structure which supports smaller beams. A main beam or “load carrying beam” in a wood post and beam structure is a girder.

Since kitchens in old Cape houses were always on the first floor they would have a girder or load carrying beam of wood running across the ceiling from which the floor joists for the second floor would run across the top of or be notched into.

No—girders are not the common usage for wooden load-carrying beams; they are called load-carrying beams. Girders are generally and most often used to describe steel load-carrying beams. Girders. Beams. It is not called Post and Beam construction for nothing. It is never called Post and Girder construction.