_Problems of the Restoration._ While the work undertaken in 1965 and 1966 was at the time referred to as a restoration, it was in fact impossible under the circumstances to reproduce with complete accuracy the appearance of the courthouse in 1800. No descriptions of the courtroom or other records of building specifications had been found; nor was any special research in eighteenth century sources undertaken for this purpose. As a result, the work produced a courtroom with idealized colonial-period interior design and furnishings in a building shell with reconstructed floor plan and structural design of the early Federal-period (during which it had initially been built). Numerous difficult problems were faced in this reconstruction, and, for the most part, they were resolved in ways that served primarily to create a room with the atmosphere of Virginia's colonial period, and secondarily to build an authentic replica of the Fairfax courthouse as of any particular historical date. [Illustration: FLOOR PLANS.] An initial problem connected with the exterior alterations was that of securing bricks and mortar to match those of the original courthouse. Bricks secured from a manufacturer of specialty bricks turned out to be a close match for the originals which were thought to have been fired from clay dug in Fairfax County.[164] Specially mixed mortar made from sand, lime and white cement also closely simulated the color and texture of the older mortar. Bricks were laid in Flemish bond which matched the courthouse and part of the old jail building. Using these new materials, broken and crumbling bricks were replaced throughout the building, and the three long windows on both the north and south sides of the courthouse were altered to form two rows of smaller windows, with the space between the first and second-floor rows filled with new brickwork. This change in the fenestration restored the building to its appearance as shown in Civil War photographs of the courthouse. Shutters similar to those shown in the same pictures were added to the windows on both floors. On the roof, some repairs were needed to restore the slate shingles. In the cupola, wooden louvres were repaired, the cupola was painted, and a weathervane restored to the top. An existing galvanized sheet metal roof was allowed to remain unchanged. For the inside of the building there were no photographs or drawings of the earlier periods, and reconstruction was influenced largely by physical evidence disclosed as the interior was systematically dismantled down to the building's outer shell. When woodwork, hardware, plaster and flooring were removed, it was found that much of the framing timber was infested by termites, and had to be replaced. In this process numerous signs of earlier workmanship were revealed.