Show us your vintage home!

[sheeplady]

That is The $64,000 Question? The city says 1899, the first mention of it in the city directory is, 1902. The previous owner insisted it was built in 1888. But on her loan application, the lenders had 1890, which is the date that the owner before her had on his sales flyer which I have. I found in the city directory a lady that lived at four different addresses, that no longer exist, and only existed for two years each in the area of my house! Unfortunately, she moved to a different house in 1901, so no bridge to 1902. Incidentally, in the 1894 city directory, her house is listed as The Last House, on my street! Now I know why so few in my city have the Historical Plaque.

The realtor had 1890 on our house. that's how far back our abstract went, but when we looked into the deeds we found the property was bought in 1851. The censuses show a remarkable increase in property value (same acres) by 1855. (Don't quote me on those exact dates.) We later found out the couple sold their previous house in 1853, so they must have moved into ours then.

 

[Stearmen]

The realtor had 1890 on our house. that's how far back our abstract went, but when we looked into the deeds we found the property was bought in 1851. The censuses show a remarkable increase in property value (same acres) by 1855. (Don't quote me on those exact dates.) We later found out the couple sold their previous house in 1853, so they must have moved into ours then.

It's fun, like repeatedly hitting your head against a brick wall! All the deeds before 1900 were lost in a fire. I then got real excited when I found out there was a 1890 census, but you guessed it, when I went to look at it, the web sight said, lost in a warehouse fire. Can I get any more unlucky?

 

[sheeplady]

It's fun, like repeatedly hitting your head against a brick wall! All the deeds before 1900 were lost in a fire. I then got real excited when I found out there was a 1890 census, but you guessed it, when I went to look at it, the web sight said, lost in a warehouse fire. Can I get any more unlucky?

At least the house didn't burn down.

My parents were never able to date their house. They orginally thought 1820, but found a will and did some genealogy that suggested the couple that built it (likely around their marriage) had much older children (3 more) than originally thought. All the local records were lost in a fire, as well.

 

[Stearmen]

Been sweating bullets since early Monday morning! We have had very high winds, gusting to over 100mph. Needless to say, a lot of power lines down, and as I have witnessed, a lot of trees uprooted, or major branches down all over town! The reason for concern is, I have a mostly dead tree on the side of the house, with branches over mine and the neighbors house. We have been trying to at least get all the offending branches down for several months now. This last time was my fault when I caught the flue a couple of weeks back. We are going to shoot for this weekend, but there is snow in the forecast. Don't need this stress!

 

[Stearmen]

This is a really sad photo of my house taken in 1992. It was from the sales flyer from the owner before the last. If you look at the upstairs windows, they are 16 over 1 double hung windows. And as if that is not unusual enough, the lower pains on all the windows was stained glass! All gone now, she didn't even save the stained glass. She really butchered up the house, new windows, took out the original fireplace, turned the butlers pantry into a stair way to the basement, got rid of the grand staircase, took out several doors and a lot of molding, put in ugly kitchen cabinets and counter tops and much more!

 

[Fading Fast]

This is a really sad photo of my house taken in 1992. It was from the sales flyer from the owner before the last. If you look at the upstairs windows, they are 16 over 1 double hung windows. And as if that is not unusual enough, the lower pains on all the windows was stained glass! All gone now, she didn't even save the stained glass. She really butchered up the house, new windows, took out the original fireplace, turned the butlers pantry into a stair way to the basement, got rid of the grand staircase, took out several doors and a lot of molding, put in ugly kitchen cabinets and counter tops and much more!

Your story pains me. This stuff is irreplaceable / it's history - it kills me when it is wantonly destroyed.

 

[Stearmen]

Well bad news today, my boiler refused to stay lit. I had the same company that got it working two years ago to come out. He did get it running, but said it will not last! Besides the burner needing replace, and the safety flame shutoff, there is also a lot of rust showing up on the boiler. If that's not bad enough, he could not get the safety valve to open, that could be fun if it over heats! So, time to replace it, it's only about a 50% affiance, if even that high. On the bright side, my water heater is on it's last leg, and the new boilers will heat the house and do domestic water in one. So I guise I am lucky the water heater didn't go first, since I would have replaced that, and then had to buy a boiler!

 

[kampkatz]

Well bad news today, my boiler refused to stay lit. I had the same company that got it working two years ago to come out. He did get it running, but said it will not last! Besides the burner needing replace, and the safety flame shutoff, there is also a lot of rust showing up on the boiler. If that's not bad enough, he could not get the safety valve to open, that could be fun if it over heats! So, time to replace it, it's only about a 50% affiance, if even that high. On the bright side, my water heater is on it's last leg, and the new boilers will heat the house and do domestic water in one. So I guise I am lucky the water heater didn't go first, since I would have replaced that, and then had to buy a boiler!

One of the certainties about old houses is that everything starts to wear out. Our 1892 Queen Anne has had major face lifts since we bought it over 20 years ago. We have tried to keep as close to Victorian styling as possible. I wouldn't go as far as installing a coal furnace like the original.Good luck on the upgrades.

 

[Stearmen]

some really good news! Not sure how I missed it, but the 16 over 1 windows were not discarded, they were reused for the enclosed back porch! To say these are rare windows is an understatement.

 

[Auld Edwardian]

When we're done on the porch, we can go through the doors into the dining room and we'll have some snacks and listen to some music.
View attachment 59748 View attachment 59749

A very nice Edison "banner" home phonograph there, with a nice "Morning Glory" horn!

 

[ashleysummer]

Here is my provence kitchen. I love its romance and light pastel colours.

 

[vitanola]

It really looks lovely, but it impresses me as possibly being a bit difficult to clean. How does that lovely kitchen function for you?

 

[Fading Fast]

It really looks lovely, but it impresses me as possibly being a bit difficult to clean. How does that lovely kitchen function for you?

Funny, I had the same thought. For those who remember, we did our kitchen and bathrooms in what is call "The Sanitary Movement" style, which (to oversimplify) is a lot of tile, smooth surfaces, few decorative features, "rounded" corners (no edges), which has proven to be - as advertised - easy to keep clean. Basically, it's a lot of surfaces to wipe down. But looking at the above, while attractive, it seems like a lot of edges, decorative features, nooks and crannies to keep clean which takes a lot of manual work.

I joke with my super girlfriend all the time that we should stop buying furniture (we haven't really furnished the place and slowly are trying to get the basics in) as every time we buy something, it increases our housekeeping as it becomes something else that has to be dusted or wiped down or have something done to it periodically to keep it clean.

 

[vitanola]

Yes, kitchens and bathrooms designed in the style of the turn-of-the-century "Sanitary Movement" are great labor savers. In the bungalow I went one step farther and choose appliances up on legs, which makes cleaning under the range and refrigerator a snap, part of an ordinary mopping. I now wish that I had done so in the big house. In the kitchen of the big house I used beaded ceiling for the cupboard doors. Historically accurate, economical, but a bit Late Victorian, and a mistake, for even painted the grooves tend to catch dirt. The elegant frame and panel doors which Mr. Fast and his partner chose for their kitchen are far more practical, as are their stone counter tops when contrasted with the wood counters in my home. The photographs which Mr. Fast posted suggest to me an ideal compromise between form and function.

 

[GJ nord]

I live in a mid 1890s cottage/bungalow in the UK (unless some jumped up Krankie gets her way) and in at least 3 of the rooms on an outside wall there are cupboards/recesses about a foot deep and 7 ft or so tall, one is boarded up (bare bricks and a few horizontal wooded batons?) the others have been utilised as electric meter storage with fairly old looking tongue n groove boarding and the other is just a display space that is decorated the same as the room it is in. I noticed in the local Dr's that they have a similar recess in a similar aged building, does anyone have a clue what they may have been for?
thanks M

 

[vitanola]

Funny, I had the same thought. For those who remember, we did our kitchen and bathrooms in what is call "The Sanitary Movement" style, which (to oversimplify) is a lot of tile, smooth surfaces, few decorative features, "rounded" corners (no edges), which has proven to be - as advertised - easy to keep clean. Basically, it's a lot of surfaces to wipe down. But looking at the above, while attractive, it seems like a lot of edges, decorative features, nooks and crannies to keep clean which takes a lot of manual work.

I joke with my super girlfriend all the time that we should stop buying furniture (we haven't really furnished the place and slowly are trying to get the basics in) as every time we buy something, it increases our housekeeping as it becomes something else that has to be dusted or wiped down or have something done to it periodically to keep it clean.

Come to Michigan for a short trip! I can fit you out with cabinet pieces at least! I have five or six spare dining room suites just waiting for space to clear in the booth at the antique mall. Most of the suites are Duncan Phyfe, a good seller here because it is sturdy, nicely finished and inexpensive. Have a 1920's suite in "Olde Englishe Italian Borax) finished in walnut, and a "Colonial" suite in oak ("Colonial" being Mission oak with curved columns, round pedestal table, and T-back chairs) Have 2 Duncan Phyfe "Apartement" suites with drop leaf tables which are 24" by 37" library tables when folded but extend to 12 feet with all of the leaves. Also have an interesting "apartment dining table" which is a drop-leaf coffee table until a button is pressed, at which time it springs up to dining table height and accepts up to three leaves. Then there are the radios, combination radio-phonographs, and the Victrolas. I have enough in stock to last me five years at my current rate of sale. They are priced from free all the way up to to cheap. I need to make room in my storage sheds for a collection of good (that is outside horn) phonographs that I bought last month and have to move before May.

 

[sheeplady]

Come to Michigan for a short trip! I can fit you out with cabinet pieces at least! I have five or six spare dining room suites just waiting for space to clear in the booth at the antique mall. Most of the suites are Duncan Phyfe, a good seller here because it is sturdy, nicely finished and inexpensive. Have a 1920's suite in "Olde Englishe Italian Borax) finished in walnut, and a "Colonial" suite in oak ("Colonial" being Mission oak with curved columns, round pedestal table, and T-back chairs) Have 2 Duncan Phyfe "Apartement" suites with drop leaf tables which are 24" by 37" library tables when folded but extend to 12 feet with all of the leaves. Also have an interesting "apartment dining table" which is a drop-leaf coffee table until a button is pressed, at which time it springs up to dining table height and accepts up to three leaves. Then there are the radios, combination radio-phonographs, and the Victrolas. I have enough in stock to last me five years at my current rate of sale. They are priced from free all the way up to to cheap. I need to make room in my storage sheds for a collection of good (that is outside horn) phonographs that I bought last month and have to move before May.

You wouldn't happen to have any phonographs in cabinets for sale? That work?

I'm looking for a cabinet "wind up" phonograph or one that fits in a cabinet. (I have a phonograph cabinet that is sort of like the ones my parents had when I was a kid, but I'd like one that actually has it's own cabinet, rather than retrofit). When my parents had company over, they'd open up a phonograph and put on a cylinder- one of my happiest memories. Eventually my parents stopped having people over, but while they did, it was really nice. They even would let me pick out a cylinder to play too, after the guests all had a turn.

 

[vitanola]

Cylinder or disc?

In cylinder machines I have three or four nice Amberola 75 upright machines (these machines are scarce compared to the table model of the period, the Amberola 30 and the Amberola 50). Her is a catalog cut of an Amberola 75:

I also have decent examples of the Amberola 30 (with its tiny, nasty sounding internal horn):

and the Amberola 50 ( a table model which shares the larger horn of the upright Amberola 75):

as well as a number of the earlier open horn machines, such as the Home:

or this Standard:

 

[vitanola]

Now the disc machines are less ecpensive, and may be more adaptable. A late Orthophonic Victrola, dating to between 1925 and 1929 will reproduce all but the latest 78's with remarkable clarity and brilliance. The more common of these machines are barely worth the value of their reproducer and tone arm, even though they are attractive pieces of furniture and play records very well indeed.

I have a number of each of these:

The Victrola Granada (1925-27):

the Consolette (1925-26):

The 4-40:

and the top of the line Credenza (which is of some value today, though not nearly the thousands for which they sold before the GFC). The Credenza actually reproduces deep bass and clear trebel. It certainly does not sound like "an old Victrola"!

Of course I also have numbers of the more traditional "Victrola" machines of the 1912-1925 eriod, machines like this Victrola IX:

and the Victrola X:

 

[vitanola]

Then there are the oddballs, for example: Radio_Phonograph combinations with light-socket powered radios and wind-up mechanical phonographs, a flash-in-the-pan from 1928:

and the Edison Diamond Disc phonographs, which play the special Edison records with a permanent diamond stylus. These machines are beautifully made and can give excellent reproduction. All that and no needles to change!