Hunnecum

Back to normal office desk life. This is an old farmhouse in a hamlet called Hunnecum, near Nuth. I pass it every day on my way to work in Maastricht.
The farm is probably some 200-300 years old. The horizontal stripes are red masonry layers in between rows of yellow sandstone. The sandstone was hauled from subterranean caves in Valkenburg, nearby.
They did that layering because the sandstone was expensive and the brickwork cheap but not strong enough. So, this layering was an economical solution to a structural problem, and looking nice as a result.