The concealed artifacts, Wheeler had concluded, were a form of spatial magic. (The homes in which these objects and inscriptions had been found tended to be quite old, dating from as early as the sixteen-hundreds, when their owners would have been culturally Dutch.) The word “apotropaic,” which derives from a Greek word meaning “to turn away,” refers to ritual practices intended to deflect malignant influences. In 2017, Wheeler summarized his research in a paper titled “Magical Dwelling: Apotropaic Building Practices in the New World Dutch Cultural Hearth,” published in an edited volume on rural religious folk practices. He began cataloguing the objects and symbols in a database, in which each individual find was associated with a street address and location inside the house. “I realized it was my last, best chance to collect information from them, to make a concerted effort to contact people and locate additional examples, creating a large-enough data set to be able to see some patterns,” he recalled, when we met, earlier this fall. Many of the people who told Wheeler these stories were approaching retirement, or something even more permanent. Oftentimes, the marks could be seen only by shining a light across the wood at an oblique angle, creating deeper, elongated shadows, revealing the faintest traces of lost inscriptions. But others resembled runes, astrological diagrams, or alchemical signs. Some of these marks, upon closer inspection, turned out to be family graffiti, or dates marking the start and end of construction. Wheeler’s colleagues found them carved into woodwork, on beams, lintels, and hearths. Others were concealed in nooks and voids that would have been inaccessible if not for the intrusive work of restoration-suggesting that they had been placed there deliberately, as permanent parts of the building. Some of these objects were secreted behind old planks and floorboards. Many of his elderly colleagues-contractors, carpenters, historians-told him that, while renovating or dismantling older houses in the region, they had found strange, unsettling things hidden in the walls: dead animals, dismembered dolls, children’s shoes, broken knife blades, and also bottles filled with human hair, bent nails, or pins.
Several years ago, he began to notice a pattern. Fifty-five years old, with a cheerful, open face and small, oval eyeglasses, Wheeler has been inside, behind, and under churches, barns, homes, and temples in cities and towns throughout New York State. He works for a firm called Hartgen Archeological Associates-“Breaking Old Ground Every Day”-which is based in a restored eighteenth-century farmhouse across the river from Albany. Wheeler, known as Wally, is an architectural historian in the Hudson Valley. and lots (and lots) of tiny 'stuff.' We included a preview of all the small extras that were officially released on February 4th.Walter R. While the tiny home community had quite the following prior to this extension pack, players will now have the option for tiny houses. The developer announced the addition of the Tiny Living Stuff Pack, complete with all a player needs to make their tiny home dreams come true. Updated by Lianna Tedesco, March 5th, 2020: For those who are part of Team Tiny House, a big surprise appeared on EA's website this year. This resulted in some amusing, yet pretty fascinating, in-game architecture. Of the challenges that spawned from this idea was the Tiny House Challenge, during which players created the smallest, most liveable homes they could think of. RELATED: All The Sims 4 Cheats For Better Gameplay In addition to creating detailed and life-like characters, players will able to create homes that rivaled some real structures.
It blew the minds of users who had previously known nothing but Sims 3 or even Sims 2 graphics and features, which didn't hold a candle to the expansive nature of the fourth game. The Sims 4gave way to many a challenge for players simply due to its sheer size and customizable features.