A Fleming I know, an immigrant to Quebec (he’s a cousin of my wife’s), who was a farmer in Flanders and is one in Quebec too (he just retired from farming), told me, after seeing how houses were constructed in Quebec, he thought the Europeans overbuilt unnecessarily. After moving here he came to prefer the “lighter” North American style, he said. I don’t agree: I much prefer the sturdier built-to-last European style. I saw, however, last time I visited his farm house, he’d built an extension onto it to enlargen the living room and formal dining room, and add a little office for his paperwork, and he did it with massive wooden beams using timber he cut from his farm woodlot. He made the walls of this extension thick, put in European-style casement windows all around, made the spot where his wood stove plugged into the chimney ornate with paneling, hung gorgeous chandeliers, and with his heirloom Flemish furniture added the place looks like a room in a European manor house. So he likes the heavy sturdy European style after all, just thinks he prefers the North American.