Your house's history

[mommymilkies]

I'm in the middle of a lot of painting, rearranging, and renovations in our house.  We bought it for a bargain five years ago, but it had a lot of undisclosed "issues".  

 

The last owners bought it and did some huge renovations, destroying a lot of the historical coolness of this old house.  

 

Nobody knew when it was built-it's in the Silk Stocking district of the historical street in town, but the inspector guessed 1920s from some architecture of the renovated house.  Then we found out a lot of the things that were from the 20s were added from a demolished home a few blocks away and aren't original.  

 

It has *the* weirdest layout of any house I've lived in, and that's saying a lot.  I really really am not fond of this house anymore. It's too small and strange for our needs.  A huge living/dining room, a library, and a den in the back, but only two bedrooms -and none of the "extra" rooms are convertible because of architecture issues. So we're trying to fix and sell, but I do love old houses.  

 

And then I came across a Historical Places document that mentioned my house as being built between 1854-1876.  Far older than most houses in my neighborhood.  But I can't find anything else about it!  

 

TL:DR, I know.  So, if you live in an older house, what have you done to research its history or preserve its history?  There's far too many renovations for me to fix it back to its original.  But I'd love to hear stories of your houses!  And pictures, if you feel like sharing. :)  I probably have some pics of my house on my blog, if you care. 

[momto2Cs]

We know that our house was built in 1940, as part of an "exclusive, white" neighborhood. I think the owner before us was the original owner. Now our neighborhood is very mixed, primarily Hispanic, and not considered to be the best neighborhood in town.

 

I love the structure of most of the house. The family room was added (probably illegally) in the 70s, and is very dated, with cheap wood "panelling", etc. The architecture elsewhere is clean and simple.

 

My ds would love to know more about it. We need to get back to the library archives and do some more research!

[wapiti]

If you go to the recorder of deeds office for your county, you may be able to find out the names of prior owners - go back as far as you can.  The really old ones might be handwritten in large books.  Once you have names of prior owners, you may be able to find out more by googling if the house was owned by, say, a prominent local businessman or something - obits can be especially interesting.  Also check the local historical society, if there is one.

 

I found out a ton about a relative's house just on-line, but it's in an area with a lot of well-known and oft-written-about history.  Pics and everything - fascinating.

 

In your particular case, it would be interesting to find pics, old floor plans or info about additions, such as might be contained in building permits.

[prairiewindmomma]

Check the property's title (usually county records). You should be able to get a rough approximation of the age of the home through records. You can also look through old telephone directories and tax records. Sometimes newspapers also have searchable online papers. I can access those archives in my area.

 

I don't live in an historical home now, but I used to.

[Laura Corin]

Our house was originally a two-room cottage built sometime in the early 19th century.  I have maps later in that century which show an L-shaped extended layout, part of which may well have been stabling (this was a farmhouse).  There was another cottage of a similar size on the land, as well as another unidentified building.  I can still trace the location of the other cottage by the Victorian daffodils that come up each spring.  The 19th century censuses show several families living in the farmstead.

 

The short end of the L was demolished at some point, but the huge foundation stones are still under a flowerbed over there.  One wall was left as a windbreak.  So up to the 1990s, there was the original cottage with an old extension, part of which was a garage, plus a kitchen with a flat roof.  It was renovated at that point and the entrance was moved to the gable end of the cottage with a porch added.  We bought it six years ago.  

 

As you walk through the porch, there is a new sitting room to your left and the kitchen to the right.  We opened up the loft as more living space, so there is now a staircase leading up out of the front hall to one large and one small room upstairs (TV room and study).  We renovated the kitchen this year.

 

Slightly to the right but mostly straight ahead, you enter a corridor that takes you from the original cottage into the old extension.  This houses the bedrooms.  Right at the end of the bedroom corridor, an extra bedroom was added on the right.

 

So: seen from the air, it looks like an upside-down capital J.  The crossbar is the sitting room and the kitchen.  The main shaft comprises the bedrooms.  The tail of the J is the final new bedroom.  

 

From the outside it looks like a typical local mishmash: old clay tile roof, newer concrete tile roof, flat roof, slate roof.  

 

 

L

[mommymilkies]

Check the property's title (usually county records). You should be able to get a rough approximation of the age of the home through records. You can also look through old telephone directories and tax records. Sometimes newspapers also have searchable online papers. I can access those archives in my area.

 

I don't live in an historical home now, but I used to.

We are pretty rural.  For some reason our title only records back to about the 60s as purchased but no further info.  IDK if the records were lost or destroyed by water/fire or something.  In the Historical Places nomination form, our house is briefly described by time period, along with one other house lacking historical information for unknown reasons. I can share the form for anyone who is desperately curious and likes this stuff. :p

[Annie G]

We went to the deed office and looked through book after book to trace the sales our house went through.  We also have a local historical society that was a big help. We eventually found the original owner and from that found a newspaper article that says he bought the lot and was having a house built that summer. later we found some society articles that described his daughter's wedding reception held here. 

 

Our house was built in the spring/summer of 1880 so the newspaper articles are pretty charming. 

 

There have been some major renovations that I wish hadn't happened. The back stairway was closed off to make room for an upstairs bathroom. The front stairway was open and curved but was modified to make the upstairs sitting room private. The pocket door from the foyer to the parlor and from the front parlor to the second parlor are gone. 

 

All of this was researched by our then 11 year old daughter as a project she wanted to tackle as a homeschooler. We helped when needed but she did most of the work. The cool part is that once she finished our local paper did a story on her project and the history of our house. That was like 18 years ago! 

[MomtoCandJ]

There isn't much for ours since it's a 1991 manufactured home. Before we moved in, it was a rental owned by dh's grandpa. I want to live in an old house one day :)

[Maplecat]

My house was custom built in the early seventies, so not as old as everyone else's, but I know a ton of it's history. Originally, there was a post-war split level on a double lot. The owners had six kids and decided to build a custom home on the other part of their lot. My parents became the third owners of this house.

 

When my oldest was a newborn, the original split-level went on the market and my husband and I bought it. It was by no means my dream home, but we bought it for the land. My parents knocked it down five years later and built a home that would work for their retirement and my family took over the custom home.

 

The fascinating thing about our experience is how much thought went into the custom home. The family who built the home had something like six kids. As a growing family, I understand why they made the decisions they did and why my current home looks the way it does. When my son was a baby, I couldn't understand why every door upstairs had a hook and loop lock on the outside. When my son started walking, I figured it out!

 

My old home had no closets by the front or back door. The new home has two large closets by the front door and a large closet by the garage door along with many cabinets. With many kids and slushy winters, this is a blessing. The original home did not have a ton of storage in the halls or bedrooms. They fixed that with the custom home. There is abundant closet space and some rooms have more than one closet. The original home had 1.5 baths and the new home has 3.5. The first house had few windows that were high up on the wall. It was hard for kids and cats to look out. That was changed in the next home. After living in the first house, I feel like I really "get" my curent home a lot more.

 

My favorite thing about my home is how much love went into constructing it. We have the blueprints, all the original manuals, and a painfully detailed list the original owner made about how to maintain every system. His love is very apparent.

[JFSinIL]

Sometimes you can spot old farmhouses, etc. on plat books.  Many plat books are on-line, if the local or state historical society has been with funds to do so.  What county are you in?

[Farrar]

We actually just did this as part of a school project. We went to the city archives at the library and the librarian was super helpful. We didn't take it as far as we could though.

 

Our house is a late Victorian style brick rowhouse was built in 1904 and is one the first rows built after all the streets were relaid out and renamed. The original layout hasn't been significantly changed. The stair was straightened to make a larger downstairs at some point (these models all had landing stairs originally). The floors are still hart pine. Some of the windows are original. The kitchen is shut off from the rest of the house in a funny way because it was originally built with a wood stove. We can see where the chimney was closed off in the kitchen. It's much larger than most of the ones around here - the ones built just a few years later mostly have galley kitchens because they had different appliances. There are windows in the side rooms, which is also unusual. The house plan juts out in the rear more skinny in order to make a window, which is a huge bonus for the upstairs middle bedroom. The bathroom was originally too small to house a sink, tub, and toilet. We had to change that. At some point, the pantry was converted to a half bath. Because it's also insulated differently that room is freezing all the time. Even in summer it's oddly cool despite having no inside ventilation.

 

Our research found the original permit to build. Then we looked up our address in the city directory. From there, we started to find owner names. The original owner was a German-American school teacher and later middle school principal. We also searched our address and the names of the people associated with it in the newspaper archives. That might be an avenue of research for you, especially if they've been digitized. I was hoping to find a little more about our house or block during the time of the riots or right after, but I found a lot more from pre-WWII, such as that rooms upstairs in the house were let out during the depression. I think if we did more work, we could find more, but that was as far as we got.

 

I'm sure that living in a city made this whole process much, much easier. The whole thing took a day. But do look into newspaper archives. The classifieds can give you some interesting clues sometimes just searching by address.

[catz]

Ours was built in 1915.  I don't know a ton about it but we have found a few "treasures" when we've done work on it.  The coolest thing we found was a jar from the original wood stain used all over the house.  It was a glass jar - like pickle jar sized and it had the original label on it.  We've found a couple skeleton keys too. 

[mommymilkies]

Sometimes you can spot old farmhouses, etc. on plat books.  Many plat books are on-line, if the local or state historical society has been with funds to do so.  What county are you in?

Richland

[KungFuPanda]

We bought from the original owner who built in 72. The end. (Yawn)

[mommymilkies]

We actually just did this as part of a school project. We went to the city archives at the library and the librarian was super helpful. We didn't take it as far as we could though.

 

Our house is a late Victorian style brick rowhouse was built in 1904 and is one the first rows built after all the streets were relaid out and renamed. The original layout hasn't been significantly changed. The stair was straightened to make a larger downstairs at some point (these models all had landing stairs originally). The floors are still hart pine. Some of the windows are original. The kitchen is shut off from the rest of the house in a funny way because it was originally built with a wood stove. We can see where the chimney was closed off in the kitchen. It's much larger than most of the ones around here - the ones built just a few years later mostly have galley kitchens because they had different appliances. There are windows in the side rooms, which is also unusual. The house plan juts out in the rear more skinny in order to make a window, which is a huge bonus for the upstairs middle bedroom. The bathroom was originally too small to house a sink, tub, and toilet. We had to change that. At some point, the pantry was converted to a half bath. Because it's also insulated differently that room is freezing all the time. Even in summer it's oddly cool despite having no inside ventilation.

 

Our research found the original permit to build. Then we looked up our address in the city directory. From there, we started to find owner names. The original owner was a German-American school teacher and later middle school principal. We also searched our address and the names of the people associated with it in the newspaper archives. That might be an avenue of research for you, especially if they've been digitized. I was hoping to find a little more about our house or block during the time of the riots or right after, but I found a lot more from pre-WWII, such as that rooms upstairs in the house were let out during the depression. I think if we did more work, we could find more, but that was as far as we got.

 

I'm sure that living in a city made this whole process much, much easier. The whole thing took a day. But do look into newspaper archives. The classifieds can give you some interesting clues sometimes just searching by address.

Very cool!  I love that kind of stuff.  And the cool room even in summer-my old Victorian had that same issue.  Weird, but very nice in 100 degree August. :)

 

Yes, this is kind of a homeschool project.  My 14 yo and I just spent a few hours hunting down a house that appeared in the March 1896 American Homes that is supposed to be 2 blocks away and is being researched for a MA Architect.  Unfortunately, it looks to have been demolished as bits of that house are in *mine* that were scavenged when it was being razed. We also found a house about 2 miles away that was owned by a famous Ornithologist. We do have this strange horse head thing outside for tying up horses that we've seen at two other houses on our street-one owned by a wealthy horsebreeder.  We aren't even sure if our house was originally a house (because of the setup) or other sort of building later converted to a home.

 

I live in...the middle of nowhere.  As in, we don't even have a health department. That's me being kind. :D  I am going to try to hunt around town for info tomorrow. 

[lllll]

..

[EmilyGF]

We lived in a sweet bungalo next to a Sears house when we lived in New Jersey. I loved Sears houses. :-)

 

My parents' home was "altered" before we bought it to facilitate the drying of certain leaves in the attic.

[IsabelC]

Our home is only about 30 years old, so no ghosts, architectural quirks or other exciting features. The only slightly 'interesting' thing is that some of the wiring and plumbing appears to have been a dodgy DIY job. If my kids visited at your house, they'd probably be running around trying to find the portal to Narnia ;)

[J-rap]

Our home is over 100 years old, and most of the woodwork and floors are intact.  Not much had changed when we moved in, except layers of new wallpaper over the years (in every room), and of course the addition of electricity, running water, and appliances.  When it was first built, there was a carriage house out back for the horse and carriage, and an outhouse.  At some point, a bathroom was added on, but the only place to put it was on the second floor directly above the pantry.  This means you have to walk through a bedroom to use it -- haha.  (We eventually turned that bedroom into a den, and also turned the pantry downstairs into a half-bath.)

 

When we first moved in, there was a very, very old gas stove that still had the internal, old-fashioned "slow cooker" in it.  (I'm not quite sure the correct term.)  We used it for many years.  There was also an old bath tub with feet, which we did exchange for a modern shower/tub.

 

The basement is unfinished, and had a jar of choke cherries from 1920.  (We still have them.)

 

An old, extremely heavy bed frame was left on the upstairs sleeping porch, which we kept and still use (though we moved it inside). 

 

We are only the third owners, and when we moved in, the youngest daughter of the original family still lived in town and was able to tell us about what it was like when she lived there. 

[Caroline]

We bought from the original owner who built in 72. The end. (Yawn)

Then you didn't buy my parents' house. Our first was built in '71, but we sold it in '77. Our second was built in '78. Mom and Dad sold it in '05. But that would have been cool if you owned my parents' old house!

[Catherine]

Our house is 98 years old-built in 1917.  It is a "folk Victorian" without fancy details or gingerbread.  It originally was heated with wood or coal most likely, and has a boiler from the 1940's when street delivery of gas first became available in our neighborhood-or so our plumber tells us.   

[Firefly]

We were really fortunate to have one of the previous owners of our house stop in with a bunch of information on it-- newspaper clippings from the 20's, letters and even an old stereoscopic photo from the 1800s with a man beside his horse, and a woman with a baby in a pram next to him.  It was so cool!  We're not sure how old our house is exactly, as the original part predates town hall.  We once had a fireplace guy ballpark it at around the late 1600s, because the huge fireplace in my office (which at one time was the old kitchen) has a bread oven in the back, and apparently later they moved the bread ovens to the side of the hearth, because women's skirts were too frequently catching on fire when they reached over to the bread oven!

 

We have a walk in attic and there are old newspaper clippings stuffed between the wall boards, as well as behind the old wallpaper and it's fun to read those.  Also, at one point in the 1700s a locally famous potter lived here, and the old barn was his studio; we are constantly finding big shards of pottery in the ground and even amongst some of the rocks in the stone walls.

 

Our neighbor's parents lived here for a while as well, so he's told us a lot about the renovations they did-- fireplaces that had been walled up and rediscovered, that kind of thing.  Over the years the old part of the house has been added on to a few times, and it's a little like a time machine walking through it!  From the old colonial era part, into the 50s, then the most recent from the 80s.  When we first moved in, we were pulling down wall paper in DS's room and someone had written their name and the date "1952" on the wall; that was a neat find.  We've also discovered kid's names on the inside of closets from the 70's.   I love it every time we learn something new about the house.  

 

[Miss Peregrine]

The previous owners were part of some cult. Philadelphia- simething or other. Their son died in the house because they didn't believe in medication. :(

[Mothersweets]

Our house was originally a two-room cottage built sometime in the early 19th century.  I have maps later in that century which show an L-shaped extended layout, part of which may well have been stabling (this was a farmhouse).  There was another cottage of a similar size on the land, as well as another unidentified building.  I can still trace the location of the other cottage by the Victorian daffodils that come up each spring.  The 19th century censuses show several families living in the farmstead.

 

The short end of the L was demolished at some point, but the huge foundation stones are still under a flowerbed over there.  One wall was left as a windbreak.  So up to the 1990s, there was the original cottage with an old extension, part of which was a garage, plus a kitchen with a flat roof.  It was renovated at that point and the entrance was moved to the gable end of the cottage with a porch added.  We bought it six years ago.  

 

As you walk through the porch, there is a new sitting room to your left and the kitchen to the right.  We opened up the loft as more living space, so there is now a staircase leading up out of the front hall to one large and one small room upstairs (TV room and study).  We renovated the kitchen this year.

 

Slightly to the right but mostly straight ahead, you enter a corridor that takes you from the original cottage into the old extension.  This houses the bedrooms.  Right at the end of the bedroom corridor, an extra bedroom was added on the right.

 

So: seen from the air, it looks like an upside-down capital J.  The crossbar is the sitting room and the kitchen.  The main shaft comprises the bedrooms.  The tail of the J is the final new bedroom.  

 

From the outside it looks like a typical local mishmash: old clay tile roof, newer concrete tile roof, flat roof, slate roof.  

 

 

L

 

I love this.

 

[jar7709]

Our current house is uninteresting. We built it. :D

 

But I do property research for a living. If your state maintains a historic archives, with a little calling around you might be able to find archived county assessor records. For a few counties around here,these records are amazing and include old photos, lists of improvements, even simplified floor plans. Other sources could be old maps, municipal photos and microfiche records, county atlases. It's really pretty fun. I've pulled records for some old family places and it is just interesting to see.

[Farrar]

The previoys owners were part of some cult. Philadelphia- simething or other. Their son died in the house because they didn't believe in medication. :(

 

:scared:  :crying:

[Farrar]

This thread is reminding me of a very odd road trip I was taken on when I was a young teen. My grandparents were in the midst of cleaning out their home and they found the plans for the house my grandmother had designed - she was a designer and had, IIRC, drawn the blueprints herself with the help of an architect they hired. So when they came to our house, just a few hours away, they took my brother and I on a road trip to see an old friend, go to some garden, and then visit the house and surprise the current owners with the plans. The current owners were not home, but I think they didn't expect them to be. We took a short walk around the house and my grandmother left them the blueprints by the front door with a nice note.

[rjand6more]

Ours was built in 1890.  We are lucky enough to know the family who lived here then(well, their kids' kids).  The owners also owned a general store in our town.  We have found lots of fun things during our renovations over the last 15 years.  We kept the front door and some floors.  Most things needed replaced.  The original garage was torn down and a new one put up.  the coal room was ripped out of the basement.  I love this house and it is so hard as we are outgrowing it and should be looking for another.  Hard to imagine living somewhere else.

[RebeccaS]

Our house was built in parts.  The original part is large, square logs with chinking.  It was built in 1819.  In the late 1800's the kitchen was added on and finally in the 1980's a keeping room was added.  The homeowner at the time spent a lot of money to make the addition look like it had come from the early 1800's, complete with small doorways, log beams, and a large open fireplace with a cooking arm.  I fell in love with this house the first time I set foot in it.  It just smelled old.  Like a museum.  

The log style itself is unusual for our area.  It's a German design, but there weren't many German settlers in this area, hence it's marked uniqueness.  The house came with a photo of the couple who built it (obviously when they were older).  The previous homeowner's wife got it from the neighbor when he cleaned out the attic of his house.  

All our floors are original to the house, though we're just about to replace our kitchen floor.  It is worn and we had some boards break a few months ago.  There is no subfloor, so when it broke, we had a hole into our basement.  We are having so much trouble finding someone willing to put a new floor down.  We want to tear off the old floor, which is so worn it really isn't salvageable, and replace it with a new wood floor.  Everyone we talk to wants to put a new floor over our old floor which would look, well, not old because it would butt up to the baseboards and be finished with shoe moulding which isn't found anywhere in the house.

 

I attached a photo of the outside front and a picture of our school room where you can see the interior log walls.

[BigMamaBird]

We have a pretty boring, suburban house.  The only thing vaguely interesting is I believe the previous owner's wife passed away from Cancer here quite a while ago.  Other than that, nothing. 

[Scarlett]

My odd little house has an interesting history. According to the neighbors it was a Sears kit house...delivered and built on site around 1981.

 

Some things in this house are materials like a mobile home....the cheap garden tub, the weird wall board in the bathrooms....but those things are ready to be replaced and over all the house is solid.

[chocolatechip]

Ours was built in 1910 and is an old farmhouse; it used to be the only house on a very large apple orchard property.

 

It has many quirks: Rocks found in the walls while trying to cut a cat door, layers upon layers of mixed wallpaper and paint, single layer floors (!), and 5 doors off the kitchen. 

 

But it's home sweet home.  :)

[TrixieB]

 

Our house was built in parts.  The original part is large, square logs with chinking.  It was built in 1819.  In the late 1800's the kitchen was added on and finally in the 1980's a keeping room was added.  The homeowner at the time spent a lot of money to make the addition look like it had come from the early 1800's, complete with small doorways, log beams, and a large open fireplace with a cooking arm.  I fell in love with this house the first time I set foot in it.  It just smelled old.  Like a museum.  

The log style itself is unusual for our area.  It's a German design, but there weren't many German settlers in this area, hence it's marked uniqueness.  The house came with a photo of the couple who built it (obviously when they were older).  The previous homeowner's wife got it from the neighbor when he cleaned out the attic of his house.  

All our floors are original to the house, though we're just about to replace our kitchen floor.  It is worn and we had some boards break a few months ago.  There is no subfloor, so when it broke, we had a hole into our basement.  We are having so much trouble finding someone willing to put a new floor down.  We want to tear off the old floor, which is so worn it really isn't salvageable, and replace it with a new wood floor.  Everyone we talk to wants to put a new floor over our old floor which would look, well, not old because it would butt up to the baseboards and be finished with shoe moulding which isn't found anywhere in the house.

 

I attached a photo of the outside front and a picture of our school room where you can see the interior log walls.

 

 

I have never seen a single-family home with three doors in front.  Do they all go to the same room, or are they outside entrances to different rooms?

 

 

[mommymilkies]

Ours was built in 1910 and is an old farmhouse; it used to be the only house on a very large apple orchard property.

 

It has many quirks: Rocks found in the walls while trying to cut a cat door, layers upon layers of mixed wallpaper and paint, single layer floors (!), and 5 doors off the kitchen. 

 

But it's home sweet home.  :)

 

Ours has a single layer floor, too.  You can see when the dirt basement light is on.  :glare: 

 

I wish I could multi-quote!  Sorry for being annoying and trying to get this all on one post.  I love these stories!  So fascinating!  

 

I was raised in a ~1875 Victorian (?).  I love it.  I miss it so much.  Secret passageways, cool details you'd never find in a new house...

 

[mommymilkies]

 

Our house was built in parts.  The original part is large, square logs with chinking.  It was built in 1819.  In the late 1800's the kitchen was added on and finally in the 1980's a keeping room was added.  The homeowner at the time spent a lot of money to make the addition look like it had come from the early 1800's, complete with small doorways, log beams, and a large open fireplace with a cooking arm.  I fell in love with this house the first time I set foot in it.  It just smelled old.  Like a museum.  

The log style itself is unusual for our area.  It's a German design, but there weren't many German settlers in this area, hence it's marked uniqueness.  The house came with a photo of the couple who built it (obviously when they were older).  The previous homeowner's wife got it from the neighbor when he cleaned out the attic of his house.  

All our floors are original to the house, though we're just about to replace our kitchen floor.  It is worn and we had some boards break a few months ago.  There is no subfloor, so when it broke, we had a hole into our basement.  We are having so much trouble finding someone willing to put a new floor down.  We want to tear off the old floor, which is so worn it really isn't salvageable, and replace it with a new wood floor.  Everyone we talk to wants to put a new floor over our old floor which would look, well, not old because it would butt up to the baseboards and be finished with shoe moulding which isn't found anywhere in the house.

 

I attached a photo of the outside front and a picture of our school room where you can see the interior log walls.

 

That is so cool!  My oldest history nerd would die from glee if she got to explore that house.

 

I hear you on replacing a floor with no sub-floor.  The last owners replaced one room's floor, covered another with cheap carpet, and covered another with cheaper laminate flooring.  Blech.  It doesn't match up and there's a bump to get in the rooms. 

[mommymilkies]

Our house was originally a two-room cottage built sometime in the early 19th century.  I have maps later in that century which show an L-shaped extended layout, part of which may well have been stabling (this was a farmhouse).  There was another cottage of a similar size on the land, as well as another unidentified building.  I can still trace the location of the other cottage by the Victorian daffodils that come up each spring.  The 19th century censuses show several families living in the farmstead.

 

The short end of the L was demolished at some point, but the huge foundation stones are still under a flowerbed over there.  One wall was left as a windbreak.  So up to the 1990s, there was the original cottage with an old extension, part of which was a garage, plus a kitchen with a flat roof.  It was renovated at that point and the entrance was moved to the gable end of the cottage with a porch added.  We bought it six years ago.  

 

As you walk through the porch, there is a new sitting room to your left and the kitchen to the right.  We opened up the loft as more living space, so there is now a staircase leading up out of the front hall to one large and one small room upstairs (TV room and study).  We renovated the kitchen this year.

 

Slightly to the right but mostly straight ahead, you enter a corridor that takes you from the original cottage into the old extension.  This houses the bedrooms.  Right at the end of the bedroom corridor, an extra bedroom was added on the right.

 

So: seen from the air, it looks like an upside-down capital J.  The crossbar is the sitting room and the kitchen.  The main shaft comprises the bedrooms.  The tail of the J is the final new bedroom.  

 

From the outside it looks like a typical local mishmash: old clay tile roof, newer concrete tile roof, flat roof, slate roof.  

 

 

L

Can I come to your house? :D

[Liz CA]

Old farmhouse built in 1914, remodeled many times, rooms added. It works for us. We added a little deck from some left over wood after a barn was dismantled - I only wish we could have attached the deck to the house and made a window into a door to walk onto the deck from the house, but alas - it is what it is.

[creekland]

If I recall correctly, our house was built in the 50s as an older neighbor was a young boy when it was being built and told us about the experience.  It still has many of the original things in it, including the oven (which still works).  The hardwoods are beautiful.  Some other things (few closets and electrical outlets plus just one bathroom) are more of a pain, but we make it work.

 

But the more interesting thing we found out about when a stranger came calling one day.  His ancestors were some of the original inhabitants of our state.  They got their deed (to our place) from William Penn himself and built a small cottage for themselves in what is now our horse pasture.  The foundation is still there.  In today's world of large houses, it's amazing how small that foundation is and when I walk by it I often contemplate what history it could tell if it could speak (I wish it could).

[RebeccaS]

I have never seen a single-family home with three doors in front.  Do they all go to the same room, or are they outside entrances to different rooms?

 

 

It's weird, isn't it?  lol  The pizza guy never knows which door to knock on, so he knocks on all three in a row which never fails to crack us up.  They go to different rooms.  The door on the left goes into the formal living room (which is our schoolroom) the center door goes into a tiny, awkward foyer, and the last door goes to a downstairs bedroom.  The only functional door is the center one.  I've had several different explanations from different people over the years, but it comes down to we have no idea why.  It's clear they were there originally, though, because inside the logs frame out the doorways.  It makes for quite the conversation piece.  ;)

[whitestavern]

Our home was built in 1741.  Ten to 15 years later it became an inn.  Washington and Rochambeau camped across the street on the march to Yorktown and rumor has it they ate here while they strategized.  French maps from the Rev War show our house as a tavern, which is pretty cool. 

 

We have a deed from 1901 and the two owners from that point on were neighbors (separate) when we moved in.  The first was an elderly woman whose family lived here from 1901 to about 1950.  Her mother recognized at that time that there was value in the built in cupboards and wooden wall panels and was approached many times to sell them, but she was adamantly against it.  Thus most of our home is still original.  There are new floor boards in the family (keeping) room and my office and the kitchen but everything else is original.  All the paneling in all the rooms except for kitchen is original as well.  By 1950 the house was still in that woman's family, but she had married and built a home next door and the house became uninhabited.  Thirty years later, in 1980, our other neighbors purchased it.  It was their 11th antique home.  They brought it back to life: resided it, added insulation, repaired fireplaces, added electrical and plumbing - it had none up til that point! - a heating system, and a kitchen - prior to that all cooking had been done on a cookstove in the fireplace.  The structure of the kitchen is original, though at the time it was a woodshed.  So though our house is very old, we do have newish systems.  We completely gutted the kitchen a few years ago and updated it while making it look old. 

 

The historical society in town has all the records for the house so we were lucky in that we didn't need to research any of it. 

 

[RebeccaS]

That is so cool!  My oldest history nerd would die from glee if she got to explore that house.

 

I hear you on replacing a floor with no sub-floor.  The last owners replaced one room's floor, covered another with cheap carpet, and covered another with cheaper laminate flooring.  Blech.  It doesn't match up and there's a bump to get in the rooms. 

 

A few years ago, we had an older couple show up at the house.  They had been driving down the street and happened to notice our house was log.  It turned out that they were renovating their house a mile or so from us and when they tore into it, found out it was a log home.  We brought them in and let them look around and ask tons of questions.  It was a fun afternoon.  So we welcome all history nerds who want to come do a walk through.  ;)

[MEmama]

The history geek in me is loving this thread!

 

Our current house isn't old by local standards (the neighbor subdivided his property and built the house for his sister in 1950), but we have lots of cool, ancient homes in our neighborhood. When we were studying the Civil War a couple years ago, we did a bunch of research on local history ties and were thrilled to find out that Underground Railroad tunnels and passageways into homes run through the neighborhood.

 

A former owner (an engineer) who updated our home was kind to take pictures of the renovation process and left them for us on a disc. Even though it lacks the horsehair and newspaper "insulation" of our former 1920s bungalow, it's cool to see what the kitchen, especially, used to look like.

 

I will never get tired of imagining the histories of the old houses around us, peeking into windows and the old barns to catch glimpses of the past. They all have such incredible stories to tell, like the family graveyard on a friend's 200 year old farmhouse; I just hope that current residents take the time to listen and care for the treasures they are.

 

Thanks for starting this thread! I wonder if I can derail school plans today to do research instead? :)

[VaKim]

Our house (along with the others on our "street") was built in the 1920s from salvaged lumber from a burned out warehouse and whatever else they could scrounge up. It was supposed to be temporary housing for railroad workers as they laid the tracks that run right in front of our house. It was originally a 25x25 square of 4 rooms. The previous owner added a small addition on the back, which is our bathroom and back porch (or mud room, as they are called now). And 16 years ago, dh and his dad closed in our front porch, which is now where our washer and dryer and various other things live. Lord willing, it will stand as long as we are living, as it is paid for. My parents bought it about 25 years ago for 12,000.00 for my sister and me to rent from them. Then, after sis got married and moved out, I got married and dh moved in with me and we bought it for 10,000 from my parents. It does sit on ¾ acre, so the yard is nice anyway.

[MEmama]

Our home was built in 1741. Ten to 15 years later it became an inn. Washington and Rochambeau camped across the street on the march to Yorktown and rumor has it they ate here while they strategized. French maps from the Rev War show our house as a tavern, which is pretty cool.

 

We have a deed from 1901 and the two owners from that point on were neighbors (separate) when we moved in. The first was an elderly woman whose family lived here from 1901 to about 1950. Her mother recognized at that time that there was value in the built in cupboards and wooden wall panels and was approached many times to sell them, but she was adamantly against it. Thus most of our home is still original. There are new floor boards in the family (keeping) room and my office and the kitchen but everything else is original. All the paneling in all the rooms except for kitchen is original as well. By 1950 the house was still in that woman's family, but she had married and built a home next door and the house became uninhabited. Thirty years later, in 1980, our other neighbors purchased it. It was their 11th antique home. They brought it back to life: resided it, added insulation, repaired fireplaces, added electrical and plumbing - it had none up til that point! - a heating system, and a kitchen - prior to that all cooking had been done on a cookstove in the fireplace. The structure of the kitchen is original, though at the time it was a woodshed. So though our house is very old, we do have newish systems. We completely gutted the kitchen a few years ago and updated it while making it look old.

 

The historical society in town has all the records for the house so we were lucky in that we didn't need to research any of it.

I want to visit!! :)

[wendy not in HI]

The house we live in now is just a regular 1980's dream house... (not in HI, we are now in VA)

 

BUT, when we lived in Pensacola, I thought it would be really interesting to trace the history of the US through the history of the old officer quarters on Pensacola NAS.  There are a few homes that were built in the 1870's that are still used as homes for higher ranking officer families today, also some neat quads that were built in the 1920's or 30's.  The book could follow families through all the wars of the 20'th century - training, deployment, returns, etc, as well as post civil war, etc.

 

I love old houses!  But updating the last house we lived in was pretty tough on our bank account (and our marriage), and that home was built in the 1970's... 

 

 

 

 

[horsellian]

Our house isn't very old (particularly by UK standards) but we do know its whole history.  It was built by the local council in 1954, a 3-bed semi-detached house made of poured concrete, as part of a large post-war housing development on what had previously been a farmer's field.  

 

It was let by the council to a family, who then bought it in 1979 or 1980 (under a scheme for council tenants called "Right to Buy").  They knocked down the two utility/store rooms which were separate but built next to the house, and built a large garage with a downstairs toilet and a storeroom which looked like it was built to fit a chest freezer!  They also did lots of decoration at that point.  Later a small aviary was added to the back of the garage, which was later converted to a strange little 'garden room' with patio doors. They also built a long conservatory on the back of the house in 1996.

 

The parents died and their children inherited the house.  They sold it to us 18 months ago, so that they could divide the proceeds, hence we are only the second family to live here.  We've done lots of revamping, as the kitchen, bathroom, etc dated from the 1980 round of improvements!  We've also unblocked the chimney, replaced the heating, rewired half the house, and knocked down the internal walls in the garage to make a proper downstairs shower room and utility.  We've also turned the garden room into a well insulated office for DH to work in.  Next we'll replace the conservatory windows and roof, plus the rest of the windows, and we've still got the 1980 yellow bathroom suite to replace!

[skimomma]

We are trying to learn more about ours.  There is no solid build date.  The city records say 1885-1899.  We have photographic evidence from 1900 and it also shows up in a 1890 map, so we assume before 1890....although it is feasible that another house was here that burned or was torn down before 1900.

 

Much of it is original....flooring, some windows, some plaster walls, stain glass, and molding.  Same with the cedar siding.  Obviously, plumbing, a  modern kitchen, and electricity were added over time.  The bathroom is in an awkward spot due to it being wedged in at a later date and the kitchen was moved away from the chimney to a previously unfinished storage area that likely served as a boot porch or cold storage in the original design.  The front porch was originally open but was enclosed at some point....probably when the kitchen was moved so that the front porch could serve as the boot porch.  Boot porches are pretty much mandatory here.  There was an old carriage house when we moved in but it was falling down so we had it razed shortly after we took possession.  Some time in the 1970s, someone added a detached garage....thank goodness!  It would never pass current zoning rules so we lucked out.  Garages are not common in our neighborhood.

 

We recently discovered that our now-double-city-lot had FOUR houses on it at one point!  This explains a lot because we keep finding pieces of house erupting out of the yard.  Our guess is that they were simply plowed in after whatever happened to them happened.  There had to have been outhouses too.  I try not to think about that.....  The three other houses all disappeared from photos between 1908 and 1917.  

 

There is a good possibility this was a kit house.  Many in our area are.  We know from historical info that our whole neighborhood was built very quickly and cheaply.....sort of like the tract housing of the 1890s.  The housing was never meant to be long-lasting but is very solid.  There is not a straight wall or level floor in the whole place but it does not feel cheap or flimsy.  We buy shims by the case.

 

There is coal residue in the basement and we also find it in the yard frequently.  We have found all sorts of interesting things in the walls and during some attic work.  Nothing valuable.  We have put most of it in a weather-proof box to keep as a time capsule to stay with the house.  We have added our own treasures to it.

[Remudamom]

Our first ranch house was built in 1900.  Three stories, seven bedrooms, one bathroom. Front porch, second floor porch. The top floor had an enclosed balcony with little built in bee doors and once upon a time there were bee hives up there.  On purpose.  A big ranching family lived and prospered there, we've pics of them outside the house on their horses.  Later it was a boarding house and when we got married some of the numbers were still on the bedroom doors.  There was a smokehouse in the back and a well.  The barn was also three stories with hay storage on the top and dairy accommodations on the ground floor.  

 

Lived there for as long as I could stand it.  Tore it down when pregnant with the first and built a new ranch house.  Never missed it although everyone in the county was furious.

[Annie G]

I've really enjoyed reading about everyone's houses- thanks for starting this thread, OP!!!

[Chelle in MO]

I've really enjoyed reading about everyone's houses- thanks for starting this thread, OP!!!

 

:iagree:   And now I'm wishing we could have a WTM home tour!