Show us your vintage home!

[EmergencyIan]

Five rooms and the back porch still have the type of "fixture" (or whatever it's called). Two rooms (kitchen and bathroom) have a porcelain socket with a pull chain, and the front porch has a porcelain socket that works off a switch in the front room.

There's a 1930s/1940s era two-bulb fixture with a really nice heavy glass shade in one of the downstairs rooms, and the dining room has an early 1950s era fixture with a glass shade. I want to replace the dining room fixture with what was there in 1930 (same type that is in the front room that I just finished "restoring").

I remember my Dad, aunts, and grandmother talking about the bare-bulb lightin the dining room that hung down and how they ran a dropcoard from that light over to a table when they got a radio in 1936 (there were no baseboard receptacliles in that room until the 1950s).

@Big Man , if you look a few posts above there is a full description of what you are looking to restore in your dining room courtesy of Vitanola. Seems it’s called a rosette.

- Ian

 

[David Conwill]

I love the upside-down lock set. It adds character! Does it still lock and otherwise function properly?

 

[Big Man]

I love the upside-down lock set. It adds character! Does it still lock and otherwise function properly?

There has, to my knowledge, never been a key. It's on a bedroom door, so there really wouldn't have been a need to use a lock. However, it appears that it would lock if there were a key, and it works fine in every other way.

 

[David Conwill]

There has, to my knowledge, never been a key. It's on a bedroom door, so there really wouldn't have been a need to use a lock. However, it appears that it would lock if there were a key, and it works fine in every other way.

The old farmhouse where I grew up (and where my mother still lives) had that style of lock on every original door. I found they all worked with a generic skeleton key. They seemed more akin to a privacy lock than anything for real security, as anybody with any key could open them.

 

[Big Man]

The old farmhouse where I grew up (and where my mother still lives) had that style of lock on every original door. I found they all worked with a generic skeleton key. They seemed more akin to a privacy lock than anything for real security, as anybody with any key could open them.

There's an old saying, "locks keep honest people honest."

 

[3fingers]

There's an old saying, "locks keep honest people honest."

Both of my grandparents homes were equipped with locks like that. My dad's folks rarely locked their door and those locks were still in use when grandma moved to town around 1981. My maternal grandmother did finally have my dad install a deadbolt after my grandfather passed away, but the original knob and lock remained unchanged.
I recall racks of skeleton keys for sale at country hardware stores at least until the late 1980's.

 

[Fading Fast]

The old farmhouse where I grew up (and where my mother still lives) had that style of lock on every original door. I found they all worked with a generic skeleton key. They seemed more akin to a privacy lock than anything for real security, as anybody with any key could open them.

Agreed. There are a several different generic skeleton keys, but we ordered several from some site years ago (my girlfriend worked on that project, which is why my details are sketchy) when we moved into our '28 apartment, which still had all the original internal door locks, and found the one that worked.

 

[Big Man]

We got a little over 15" of snow today. It's cold outside, but nice and warm inside by the fire tonight.

 

[Big Man]

Today wasn't the first big snow here at the old home place. This is my Dad standing in the front yard in 1925.

 

[BobHufford]

We got a little over 15" of snow today. It's cold outside, but nice and warm inside by the fire tonight.

That looks so inviting!

Today wasn't the first big snow here at the old home place. This is my Dad standing in the front yard in 1925.]

It's great that your family continues to enjoy this old home. Brings a smile to my heart.

 

[Bushman]

I recently uncovered a magazine clipping that served as the concept for remodel we did for our basement:

 

[Warden]

Thought I would share this image from our home. Afraid it is on Instagram so you will have to click on the link to see it.

Starting working in our bathroom only to find these tiles on the floor

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bvw-BhXAXTW/

 

[Vera Godfrey]

Thought I would share this image from our home. Afraid it is on Instagram so you will have to click on the link to see it.

Starting working in our bathroom only to find these tiles on the floor

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bvw-BhXAXTW/

Wow! Gorgeous tiles! Were you able to save them?

 

[Fading Fast]

As many of you know, we live in a 1928 apartment building. This morning, when I went down to the building's gym (a small basement room with exposed pipes and about six pieces of exercise equipment and some free weights - just disabusing anyone having visions of a fancy gym setup), I noticed a wall panel had been opened up.

Looks like original and updated telephone switches to me, but I'm sure some here (Lizzie for sure) will be able to correct and expand on that. I love the "Telephone Cable Fault Locator" as it looks like a piece of equipment from the '50s.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Sure what it looks like to me. I hope there's not the picked skeleton of a Bell System technician sprawled nearby, abandoned and forgotten since Ma passed away.

 

[Fading Fast]

Sure what it looks like to me. I hope there's not the picked skeleton of a Bell System technician sprawled nearby, abandoned and forgotten since Ma passed away.

Amazing that it's still in use. We never hooked up a land-line when we moved in three years ago, but most in the building do and are - I guess - getting their phone service through that board.

 

[LizzieMaine]

It could also be a distribution point for a building intercom system -- if you've got one of those "buzz me in" security doors in the building lobby with individual intercom stations in each apartment, it would go thru a block like that.

 

[Fading Fast]

It could also be a distribution point for a building intercom system -- if you've got one of those "buzz me in" security doors in the building lobby with individual intercom stations in each apartment, it would go thru a block like that.

We don't have that, but there is an intercom system in the building where the front desk can call up to each apartment and each apartment can buzz down to the front desk - so probably uses a similar board. It was a very 1920s thing - I see it in many movies of that era.

That said, one of the tags in that panel lists an apartment and its full telephone number, which is what made me think it was telephone and not intercom, but that's still just a guess.

And the intercom system and land-lines are completely separate in our building. Each apartment has one intercom phone that does nothing other than talk to the front desk. The land-line phones are not related to the intercom phone.

 

[Fading Fast]

This is our intercom phone:

 

[LizzieMaine]

What's really curious to me is why that test unit is just sitting there. Was somebody recently working on the panel and went out to lunch? Or did they get laid off mid-job?