My house has a doppelganger

I had thought my 1925 house was a Sears house when i found boards with writing on them, "first floor" "second floor". After doing some searching, i found this website http://www.antiquehome.org/House-Plans/ which shows many of the types.
Mine and the house next door are both definitely Alladin homes. They donated all the brochures to a college and they are posted online somewhere, can't find it currently. They used to deliver the wood by railroad car to the nearest station, in my case maybe 1/4 mile away. Couple different coal hand fed boilers were options. The 2x4's measure a real 2"x4".

I know that sears has a website history of their houses, gives priceing & options an interesting read.

brckwit, is it an optical illussion or are the first two first floor windows on the side view of your house lean toward one another?

samhill wrote:brckwit, is it an optical illussion or are the first two first floor windows on the side view of your house lean toward one another?

No illusion, they do lean. This has been discussed before in other threads but ...

basically many years before sunbury had a river wall the flood water reached the property and caused that side of the house to sink a little bit. Where the windows slant in is directly where the chimney runs through the wall. The base of the chimney is made up of huge rocks at least6 feet wide and i would estimate the chimney itself is about 35 ft tall and probably 3 ft wide at least. so there is a lot of weight at that one point of the house that caused the settling.

A structural engineer inspected the house about a year ago and said the house hasn't settled in a long time and he doesn't foresee any farther settling

Then as long as all is well it just shows that the house has charm.

Definately towards the end of the Victorian Era. There was a lot of Victorian influence in the early 1900's. I'll bet the first floor was primarily Chesnut wood trim and the second floor was just pine trim. This was very common as well. They liked pocket doors and butler stairways as well. A beautiful time of architecture and craftmanship.

Iceman wrote:Definately towards the end of the Victorian Era. There was a lot of Victorian influence in the early 1900's. I'll bet the first floor was primarily Chesnut wood trim and the second floor was just pine trim. This was very common as well. They liked pocket doors and butler stairways as well. A beautiful time of architecture and craftmanship.

Yeah that's just about right. Lot's of pocket doors, butler staircase. im not sure if its chestnut? maybe oak i think on the first floor then the second and third floor have lots of pine. i do have 10" baseboard. you don't see that anymore. No crown molding though, that sort of sucks.

and some dumbass before i bought the house thought it would be a good idea to paint the floors in 3 of the rooms. stupid f*ck

brckwlt wrote:and some dumbass before i bought the house thought it would be a good idea to paint the floors in 3 of the rooms

I had an antique cape built in 1787, post and beam. Someone cut clean through a 12 x 12 floor beam to make way for the toilet outlet pipe. Typical small-town gossip: the local carpenter who saw the problem told someone else, who told someone else, and so on. Months later we met an elderly relative of the previous owner. The first thing he said, after introductions, was, "I put that bathroom in right after World War II, but I didn't cut through no floor timbers!"

rberq wrote:

brckwlt wrote:and some dumbass before i bought the house thought it would be a good idea to paint the floors in 3 of the rooms

I had an antique cape built in 1787, post and beam. Someone cut clean through a 12 x 12 floor beam to make way for the toilet outlet pipe. Typical small-town gossip: the local carpenter who saw the problem told someone else, who told someone else, and so on. Months later we met an elderly relative of the previous owner. The first thing he said, after introductions, was, "I put that bathroom in right after World War II, but I didn't cut through no floor timbers!"

That is priceless. Do you know who did cut through it? did you fix the floor beam?

acesover wrote:Coalminer housing. http://home.earthlink.net/~hilltj/Housing.html

The shanty is my house minus the more recent addition -- looks exactly like it!

The main 7 x 7 beam in my house was cut 80% through for my chimney ......... that's why my kitchen floor is more like a ramp! The cats have fun out there chasing the ball, 'cause after they whack it, it keeps moving towards one wall!

SMITTY wrote:my kitchen floor is more like a ramp! The cats have fun out there chasing the ball, 'cause after they whack it, it keeps moving towards one wall!

My LR has a similar slope where someone added an extension on one end, but I think they built it sloped, because it is set on granite and it hasn't moved in the 32 years I have been here. I guess they had all the tools they needed except a level. The original house is all solid, and obviously was built by craftsmen who knew their business. Every add-on, however, has problems, except the garage which was built probably 60 years ago by the old-timer who lived across the road. He was quite a character -- professional touring boxer in his youth, builder later on, farmer for most of his life. When he was 85 and I was 45 he could still do more work in a day than I could do in a week.

HA! Exactly like my place!

In my TV room, not one wall is plumb OR square! Plus I have a window that's 3" lower on one side than the other! Lots of "camp-type" construction in this joint!

.....and I'm adding some of my own