Show us your vintage home!

[Babydoll]

Yes, it is very cool to have that connection. I like being able to see what it was originally.

The man that founded the mill moved to that area in 1905, so we know the house came after that. When the bathroom was remodeled about 8 years ago, there was a bunch of newspaper found in the walls that had been used as insulation. It dated to the early 20s. We moved there in 1976, and it looked much the same as it does now.

 

[Big Man]

Was the town a "mill town" (i.e. most everything there existed because of the mill), or was it just a town that had a lumber mill? There is a real interesting logging town that has been preserved as a sort of museum in Cass, West Virginia. I took my boys there on vacation one summer about 20 years ago. "Mill towns" are interesting places.

 

[Babydoll]

It wasn't so much a town as a community that formed around the mill. There was a school (I read that it was called a "school district", but there was only one school.... so I'm not sure that term is correct), a church, a mess hall, a boarding house, and probably some sort of general store. There was another lumber mill run by the owner's brother located three miles away to the east. There was an actual town about 2 miles to the west that was a mining town.

When I was growing up, I played in the woods surrounding the house often. I built quite a few forts. In the process of digging, I unearthed all sorts of broken glass bottles, dishes, and bricks - remnants of the community. My dad had the pleasure of boarding off several open mine shafts on our property after my older brother almost fell into one! I have a feeling that after the logging was done in the area, they turned to coal mining.

This lumber mill was in operation for under a decade. The one run by the brother closed in the 1970s. I'm curious now as to why one survived and one failed. More research for me to do!

 

[Big Man]

...When I was growing up, I played in the woods surrounding the house often. I built quite a few forts. In the process of digging, I unearthed all sorts of broken glass bottles, dishes, and bricks - remnants of the community. My dad had the pleasure of boarding off several open mine shafts on our property after my older brother almost fell into one! ...

Sounds like a fun place to grow up. I spent a good portion of my youth gigging in old trash piles and around old house sites looking for anything "old". It's a wonder i didn't turn out to be an archaeologist. [huh]

Good luck on your continued research.

 

[Babydoll]

It was a wonderful place to grow up. We rode bikes, dirt bikes, built forts, played "War" after dark, basketball, skate boarded.... all in our little enclosed community. The only thing we had to worry about was The Bear that came out after dark in the summer to feast on the blackberries, crab apples, and plums we had growing in the neighborhood. To scare it off, Mom taught us to sing "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" full voice to warn it that we were coming. A few times, I'm sure that my brother singing it set the neighborhood dogs to howling - definitely enough to scare away The Bear!

 

[Big Man]

Sounds like the only difference in your growing up and mine was we would have shot the bear.

I'm afraid those times are gone forever. I am glad I had the opportunity to play and "explore" without fear of bad things happening. Life was good "back then."

 

[Dr Doran]

A synthesis of the "haunted" question

The "haunted" question has a reasonable answer. Perhaps we can consider a house "haunted" in a good way: by the memories of Big Man's grandparents. These live on. A benevolent haunting.

DHermann, best of luck. The building is a beaut and they say the Bronx is getting better every day. As for schmancy restaurants &c not in the neighborhood, well, those have their own drawbacks such as pretentious "foodies" (boy have I dealt with those when I worked in the natural foods industry!) and annoying overly wealthy yuppie patrons ... the Bronx sounds just my speed.

 

[Miss Brill]

It was a wonderful place to grow up. We rode bikes, dirt bikes, built forts, played "War" after dark, basketball, skate boarded.... all in our little enclosed community. The only thing we had to worry about was The Bear that came out after dark in the summer to feast on the blackberries, crab apples, and plums we had growing in the neighborhood. To scare it off, Mom taught us to sing "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" full voice to warn it that we were coming. A few times, I'm sure that my brother singing it set the neighborhood dogs to howling - definitely enough to scare away The Bear!

I don't know why, but I'd love to live in an area with bears or panthers, or wolves, any kind of predator. It seems like it would make life an adventure. I also get sick of every cat in the neighborhood coming over for me to feed them. lol

 

[Big Man]

I don't know why, but I'd love to live in an area with bears or panthers, or wolves, any kind of predator. It seems like it would make life an adventure ...

Let me tell you my "bear" story: I grew up living at the Principal's house between the high school building and the elementary school building (my dad was school principal and we lived at the school). One day before I was old enough to start school, I was playing in the back yard. My mother looked out the window and saw "a big black bear" in the yard near me. I was about five years old at the time, but I can vividly remember my mother coming out the door screaming and grabbing me up by the arm and carrying me back in the house.

Well, to make a long story short, it wasn't a bear after all. It was one of Mr. winter's big black hogs that had escaped from its pen and wondered over to the school grounds. My dad had got the boys from the football team together and they caught the hog and took it back across the road to Mr. Winter's house.

It's been almost 50 years ago, but we all still get a big laugh when we tell about the time momma saved me from the "bear".

Yeah, life in the country can be fun !

 

[cowboy76]

Well, here's some....

Some of our Golden Era home...built in 1910. Found some interesting info by accident one day whe I typed in our address to Google or Yahoo,...whichever it was??.....
Anyway, I found it was home to a Blacksmith and there was actually a birth that took place in our home of a baby girl that was brought into the world in our very home soo many years ago, I think it was back in the late teens if I recall correctly! Pretty cool I thought, being that I'm a Boilermaker and in our industry we have and still do have Blacksmiths, though they are far and few between.

My wife's birthday present (among others) a new (OLD) 1930s oak kitchen table and chairs,....(dont mind the clutter in the back,..we were cleaning...) Table cloth from great grandmother,...

Two little magazine-like books I picked up for her,...Metropolitan Cookbook and Housewife's Yearbook, 1937...

The dining room's chandelier that I bought when we moved, started to clean and restore it and found all that BRASS underneath some horrible paint! Restored by myself, period correct even with new cloth covered wire...

Our Model 600 Wurlitzer jukebox,...yes it does work and play records,....it is an old one that plays only 78s. (Again, sorry about the clutter, cleaning today,...)

Random corner of our house,...old school clock that came out of an old school that my grandmother attended....

In our half-bathroom downstairs....vintage pennants,..but the cool thing was that I picked up pennants of places we had actually been, but in vintage pennants only, like Niagra Falls,...yeah that was our honeymoon of sorts.....

Living room,..well, part of it anyway. The deco end tables and blue mirror coffee table are also my wife's birthday presents,.....didnt pay over $80 clams for the end tables and coffee table all together!! Sofa was even cheaper!! Yep the candlestick phone works, right above the two Reader's Digests from 1941.

Another shot of living room,...(uh, dont mind the laundry, did it earlier... was movin the drums & 1950s tv that I picked up for a friend, stuff just ended up in the photo!!)...
Our floor model Philco tunes in to 900 AM WCHML our of Canada for old radio programs, the fireplace insert came with the house, was of the original owner's, and old gas fired psedo-fireplace/parlor heater, we dont use it though,...and yes, that's my buck, first one I got as a little boy!

On the wall in the back by the stairs,...that's our "Family History Wall"...photos of family members from the early days,...from WWI, my grandfather at the 39 worlds fair, great grandparents,...my wife's great grandparents, her grandfather's navy photo and a picture of the ship he served on during WWII,....& many more!

 

[Murph351]

Great home tour!
That chandelier looks excellent.

 

[cowboy76]

Great home tour!
That chandelier looks excellent.

Oh, well thank you very much,...much appreciated!

Yeah, I took out a lot of the modern lighting that was there and replaced it with old stuff I restored and rewired. I just picked up repro push-button light switches today. If I get some time next week they're going in....I still have to polish up the brass switch covers I picked up though,..not enough time or energy.[huh]

 

[Miss Brill]

You look like my dead uncle, Elmer. He was buried in his overalls.

 

[Murph351]

Oh, well thank you very much,...much appreciated!

Yeah, I took out a lot of the modern lighting that was there and replaced it with old stuff I restored and rewired. I just picked up repro push-button light switches today. If I get some time next week they're going in....I still have to polish up the brass switch covers I picked up though,..not enough time or energy.[huh]

Used the repro push buttons on all the switches in our house as well.
Used the ones with the dimmer built into the bottom push button for the dinning room and living room chandeliers.
Neat way to hide a dimmer.
Guests always get a kick out of using the push button switches.

 

[cowboy76]

You look like my dead uncle, Elmer. He was buried in his overalls.

Uhhh,..umm,...thanks??...I think,.. [huh]

I usually wear overalls sometimes with an old 30s-40s necktie and newsboy cap or fedora when I'm out running around or working. Overalls, mainly Red Kap as they've been around since 1923 and they haven't changed style pretty much at all. I did score a pair of pinstriped dead stock overalls last month for $12 bucks,...and they are OLD! Have an old paper tag stitched on, with name and price of one dollar and change....

 

[cowboy76]

Used the repro push buttons on all the switches in our house as well.
Used the ones with the dimmer built into the bottom push button for the dinning room and living room chandeliers.
Neat way to hide a dimmer.
Guest always get a kick out of using the push button switches.

Yeah i'm so out of step I guess, I just found out they made the dimmer ones last night,...I'm gonna use a few because my wife got spoiled with the dimmers the former owners installed,....I admit the dimmer push buttons are nice

 

[Murph351]

Yeah i'm so out of step I guess, I just found out they made the dimmer ones last night,...I'm gonna use a few because my wife got spoiled with the dimmers the former owners installed,....I admit the dimmer push buttons are nice

Too funny... My wife was the one that found the push button dimmers for our house.

 

[dhermann1]

Cowboy76: Wow! Super neat! This is obviously what can be accomplished when both spouses are into vintage. But I must confess, the object I envy and covet most is that jukebox. That is a real treasure. I lived in a house heated by those old gas space heaters. Dangerous monstrosities, but when you don't have to rely on them for heat, they do have great charm. Thanks for sharing. Next time you're in the City, give me a yell.

 

[cowboy76]

Cowboy76: Wow! Super neat! This is obviously what can be accomplished when both spouses are into vintage. But I must confess, the object I envy and covet most is that jukebox. That is a real treasure.

......Next time you're in the City, give me a yell.

Thank you very much!
Yeah if i head up in the near future i'll be sure to tell you beforehand!! sounds good!

Yes, the juke, well it came as a present of sorts from my Dad. He had told me about it, I was going to go look at it when he told me he already picked it up. It looked HORRIBLE in the beginning, but my Dad restored it to what you now see,...he restored some of my old radios also. I actually had a wild childhood. Though we were mainly poor, in the 70s-early 80s people were throwing jukes and pinballs and stuff away still,....he'd get them for next to nothing! In my room as a kid, at one point he put a pinball from the early 60s in there, an old WWII era machine gun game, (was the size of a pinball but looked like a big 1919 machine gun) and a big Lionel train set once,....he had about 70 jukeboxes at one point (though I was too young to remeber it) but we had to sell almost everything we owned after a bad construction accident, to pay our bills and pay the rent.

 

[BeBopBaby]

Pretty cool I thought, being that I'm a Boilermaker and in our industry we have and still do have Blacksmiths, though they are far and few between.

On a totally un-related note - my husband's father was a boilermaker in the Philadelphia and Southern NJ area. You're probably in the same union he was in and work on some of the same jobs he did.

Two little magazine-like books I picked up for her,...Metropolitan Cookbook and Housewife's Yearbook, 1937...

I have a copy of the Metropolitan Cookbook as well!

The dining room's chandelier that I bought when we moved, started to clean and restore it and found all that BRASS underneath some horrible paint! Restored by myself, period correct even with new cloth covered wire...

I am jeaous of your chandelier! I've been looking for something similar for our dining room for ages. The people who owned our 100 yr-old house before us took out all the light fixtures and put in the most awful cheap light fixtures. The current dining room light looks like something you would find in a prison interrogation room.

You have a lovely house!