It was July 2018. Sitting in my parents’ house, my mother handed me a stack of papers and asked what my guess was about the appraisal. I was within $5000.
Not bad for a house on ten acres sitting nearly 200 miles from where I live. Then again, I knew the house quite well as I’d been going there my entire life. The appraisal was for my grandparents’ house and my mother, as eldest child of Violet and “Albert”, had the responsibility of liquidating it for my grandfather.
It’s amazing how a little time can change one’s perspective on things. For my entire life this house was an oasis of pleasantness, a place to escape various dramas, the only place in which the memories were entirely good. I simply possess no bad memories from there. That in and of itself is highly remarkable.
But I had not been to this house in eighteen months. This was to be my last time there, a bitter pill to swallow, but the reality was obvious. My grandmother Violet was gone, my grandfather “Albert” was in assisted living. It was time.
This visit was different. Having entered the emotionless mental state I occupy when dealing with life’s various unpleasantries, I knew this visit was for neither fun nor relaxation. I was not going to dwell on the reasons for this final visit, the primary task of which was to dispose and donate all remaining personal items. However, this didn’t mean I could not have my daughter take pictures so I could savor the memories.
This visit was also different as I was objectively viewing the house for what it was – a well built, century old farmhouse that was in need of abundant rehabilitation. The windows were the same ones present when my grandparents bought the house in 1961. The green aluminum siding was from the 1960s, thanks to a long ago tornado. The electrical wiring had cloth insulation and there was nary a neutral wire in any outlet. Even the 220 volt wiring for the dryer was tied directly to the power line, with no breaker in the circuit.
At least the roof was new. It was replaced when my grandfather was 92; he said with its fifty year warranty he didn’t anticipate having to buy another roof again.
Some people say memories fade and perhaps they do if the stimulus is absent. But this stimulus was present in my life until I was nearly 46 years old. Yes, I am fully aware few people can make a claim to being that old and still having grandparents around. It seems longevity is in my genetic code – at least for some generations.
So let’s go on a tour. While the house is six rooms filled with the evidence of departure, what is contained in these rooms could fill volumes. Keeping this to a manageable length is going to be tough – we are already at nearly 500 words.
Where do I start?
The Scott County Assessor says this house was built in 1910; nobody knows for certain. Legend has it the original owner was a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River who spent some coin to get a solidly house built for his family. He invested well.
How often do you see wooden ceiling tile like this? The wood in the house is amazing.
Since this ceiling tile is in the kitchen, let’s start there. It is the first room you enter off the enclosed back porch (the front door was rarely used then nailed shut at some point) and it was the social epicenter for the interior of the house, a fact stemming partially from Midwestern custom but also from my grandmother invariably offering food to any visitor. If you eat, you should sit at the table.
This countertop has seen a lot of meals being prepared. It also worked out well for access to the upper tier of the cupboard. I’ve witnessed my grandmother standing on the counter to the left of the sink more times than I can count, the last being when she was in her late 80s. For whatever reason, perhaps familiarity, the magnitude of it didn’t immediately register.
The kitchen was also a great place to be simply due to the wood on the walls. I could look at it for hours. There are more memories springing from here than anywhere else in the house. Perhaps the strongest, for whatever reason, was a knock-down, drag-out argument my grandparents had during a severe windstorm. As the storm was approaching, with the house being on a hill allowing for tremendous views of approaching weather, my grandfather stepped outside to get a better look. His timing was off; the wind hit as he stepped out and it blew the storm door from his hands, smacking the house.
This did not sit well with my grandmother. It seems such meteorological curiosity ran in the Lambert family as she brought up a similar situation that had happened with my grandfather’s mother decades prior, with the wind pulling her outside and having to be pulled back into the house. So during a ferocious windstorm, instead of our intended destination of the basement accessed by this door, my sister and I sat at the kitchen table listening to my grandparent’s discuss the (lack of) merit in stepping outside to investigate the weather. Her contention was any inspection could be performed through the windows someone saw fit to put in the place. He disregarded her opinion of storm chasing. Their tumultuous debate faded along with the storm.
But that was how they were; blunt and sharp, getting to the point and never holding a grudge. The talent of blistering yet loving honesty is a dying art.
There are two rooms off the kitchen – the living room or the TV room. Let’s go right, to the living room.
Every winter the living room was blocked off. Rarely used, a layer of quilts were hung over the doorway as there was no reason to heat it. The quilts came down for Christmas when the white elephant gift exchange took place. Decorations were a running gag; my grandmother never saw the need to decorate but acquiesced to family pressure. She kept the Christmas tree in an upstairs closet, draped with a bedsheet, for 364 days and 22 hours out of the year.
In her practicality, she had hot-glued the ornaments to the branches, negating any future need to waste time decorating.
It was one of these Christmases, when Grandpa Albert was in his early 60s, it was discovered their water heater had thrown in the figurative towel. Grandpa Albert, one who was not about to open his wallet without ample and urgent need, did not see any reason to replace it. It wasn’t the cost; rather, it was because a new water heater had a twenty year warranty and he was convinced he wouldn’t live long enough to see the warranty expire. No reason to pay for wasted benefit.
There was little to nothing sacred in my family. He was teased about it all night; a new water heater showed up a few days later. Unsurprisingly, he outlived the warranty.
The other room off the kitchen was the TV room. For years I would hesitantly enter this room as either the prior carpet or their 1970s vintage orange couch prompted my nose to run profusely. Both were replaced simultaneously and my reaction ceased.
Just on this side of the doorway there had been a metal grate for the old furnace. One winter when I was about four or five I was barefooted and forgot about it being hot. I walked across it and can still feel the pain from that. This was the closest to unpleasant I ever experienced here.
On my last visit I finally realized how dark the room was. The dark 1960s era paneling, combined with the single overhead light fixture, made for a very dark room. The numerous lamps were gone.
My grandfather enjoyed watching television, but in moderation. At their previous home in nearby Scott City, my grandparents were the first people in the neighborhood to have a television.
Many an episode of Sanford & Son, Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, and The Young and The Restless have been watched in this room. I will credit my enjoyment of LaWanda Page to my early exposure to Sanford; I will blame my respect for soap operas on my grandparents, particularly Grandpa. His dive into the soaps was typical him. Turning on the television early one day intrigued him as Y&R preceded the local news broadcast. He worked his way up a few minutes at a time until the television came on for “Nikki” instead of the news.
They both enjoyed “watching Nikki” and laughing about the poor decisions of various characters.
I won’t dwell on the last room downstairs. It was their bedroom, the room where my Aunt Connie died in 1971. It was simply their bedroom and I stayed out of there.
Let’s look out the never used front door. I’m speculating this is the original door.
Now let’s turn around and head upstairs.
The area behind the steps would make a fabulous home office. The wall to the left had been adorned with two fish sent to the taxidermist, a highly uncharacteristic act for my grandparents. One had been caught in the Gulf of Mexico, the other was an eight pound wide-mouth bass caught in the neighbor’s pond. Both are now hanging on the wall of my office at work.
This first room had been my Uncle Ron’s bedroom. The holes in the closet door are from his target practice with a pellet gun. I’m not sure how that played out.
Behind this door is where I found the newspaper from 1963, mentioned here.
I was rarely in here other than to inspect my grandfather’s annual ginseng harvest. At one point there was a king sized bed in this room. The mattress was covered with newspaper, with the ginseng placed on the paper for drying before sale.
The other bedroom had belonged to my mother. In some 1960s era fashion statement she would later regret, she is the person who lobbied to paint the floor gray. It was quality paint as it still looks good nearly sixty years later.
While I have resisted the urge to dive into more of the stories these walls could tell, the story associated with this room needs to be told. It is nothing unique yet it is. Somehow it manages to encapsulate the humor, lack of pretension, and basic down to earth qualities of my grandparents. My grandmother would chastise me greatly for telling this, but she was a prime player. Some stories need to be told.
I was about ten years old at the time. My sister and I were spending the night and, for whatever reason, Grandpa’s older sister Stella and her husband Ed were also spending the night. For simplicity, Ed and Stella slept in Grandma and Grandpa’s bed downstairs. Grandpa and I were in one bed with my sister and grandmother in another bed in this same room.
This was also during the period my grandmother was flipping yard sale goodies at a flea market in nearby Sikeston so she always had a stash of stuff in this room, located around the floor vent. This room is big enough to handle it well.
As I was drifting off to sleep it all began with Grandma’s announcement.
“Dammit, old man, cut that out.”
“What?”
Despite it being dark, I could hear her eyes narrowing. “Don’t lie to me. You are being uncouth.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Go to sleep.”
“How can a person sleep with this stench? There’s something wrong with you.”
“You’re carrying on about nothing is keeping these kids awake.”
I could hear her climbing out of bed and walking toward her stash of stuff.
“No, you are keeping them awake with your passing gas. It’s disgusting.” She was digging through various bags of treasures.
It was at this point he no longer tried to hide anything.
“See, I knew what you were doing. Here, this should take care of it.” I could then hear the repeated pfffft from two perfume misters, one in each hand, spraying some of the most vile dime store perfume ever.
For several minutes this show played out. Fart, spray, fart, spray with an ongoing and pointed dialogue about it all.
This is likely the only time I ever laughed myself to sleep. But that room did smell like somebody had pooped a bottle of low-grade perfume. Years later, Stella and Ed were there for another visit. Stella asked me about her earlier visit in which she and Ed kept hearing all this laughing from upstairs. I told her Grandpa was farting. She started laughing, saying there was no need to say anything more.
But this chapter of life is now officially closed. The house was sold in August 2018. My Uncle Ron (his real name was Tom) died in December 2019 at age 61 due to a rapid illness; soon thereafter Grandpa Albert (his real name was Alfred), having lost two of his three children, began the inevitable downward spiral. He left assisted living and moved in with my parents soon after this pandemic started. He died July 19 of this year at age 96.
Yet this amazing house has started a new chapter after 57 years. It’s amazing how time flies as my mother was a freshman in high school when the house and ten acres was purchased for $12,000 in 1961; she was 71 years old when it was sold. Similar was the case for Tom as he was three in 1961 and was a few months shy of being sixty when it was sold.
During a visit to my parent’s house this past February, we made a trip by this house. The two outbuildings were gone and the septic system has been replaced. The house has been rewired and new windows have been installed. New siding was imminent.
The couple who purchased the place are in their 20s. In a reflection of the times, both he and she have the same first name with the same spelling. That’s okay. All that matters is their appreciation of the house. They fell in love with it upon viewing it prior to my mother taking bids on the place. They are addressing what needs attention while keeping the basic character of the house.
Something tells me this house will serve them quite well for the next fifty-seven years.
While unremarkable at first glimpse, this is the most remarkable house I have ever encountered in my life. But that does not mean my last time down this sidewalk was easy.
Lots of memories locked up in those walls…what a great recapsulating of all of it.
I’m trying to work out how you’d go about wallpapering (or painting) the wall next to the stairs with the railing right in front of it, that looks like a royal pain.
I wondered the same thing…the paper was ancient. However, right behind that wall behind the railing was a walk-through closet. The new owners were talking about opening that area back up, according to my mother.
The paper was so old it was starting to yellow.
That explains why they couldn’t put the paneling there, without taking the railing apart. It appears that the wallpaper behind it is original, put up before the railing.
Wow, that’s like “Lifetime” transmission fluid. Lifetime wallpaper.
Great story. I know the feelings exactly having had to clean out two parents’ homes over the last six years.
The knotty pine reminds me of my in-laws house. It too was covered in knotty pine except for part of one bedroom. My wife told me that she hated that paneling so much that while in high school, she saved her babysitting money to pay for normal paneling. She only had enough money to cover one wall, however. When we sold the house four years ago, the couple that bought it were very excited that it had knotty pine paneling and tore out the paneling my wife had bought. My wife just smiled and shook her head.
Lots of stories of electrical adventures in my in-laws house. Especially how he ran 14/2 wire from an outlet in the back porch, under 1″ of dirt, into the garage to power all the outlets.
When we built our new house four years ago, I nailed a piece of knotty pine paneling from the old house to the wall in the attic. Told my wife that is was now officially her house.
Something else that was learned – and I forget details – is there was a significant problem with the electric line coming into the house. The electric company was amazed the place hadn’t caught fire it was so bad.
My parents had entertained the idea of buying the place at one point but realized there was an abundance of work needed.
I deleted the part about the septic tank that was on its last legs for 40 years.
My in-laws had a situation like this — their plumbing had intermittent problems for years. It turned out to be a pipe that was collapsing, but they just ignored it. Oh, and they also installed an outhouse (about 100 yards from the house) for when it the problem would flare up.
One summer, a whole bunch of us gathered at their house for a long weekend — about 10 adults and four kids. And of course, the plumbing backed up real bad, so we couldn’t use the toilet and had to use the outhouse. Those of us under 70 were somewhat irritated, but the older relatives thought nothing of it. I remember when my wife’s 90-year-old uncle drove up, we told him that we all had to use the outhouse, and he nonchalantly said “Oh, brings me back to living on the farm!”
You’ve hit upon three things, Eric. Tell Mrs. Eric you are on a hot streak today.
– At mine and Marie’s wedding reception, the toilets backed up. Grandpa thought nothing of it, going outside to look for a tree. He is the person who discovered the best man and maid of honor getting to the root of their attraction.
– Grandpa obtained an outhouse about ten years ago. Yes, he used it. It saves water and the pump in the well doesn’t have to run, saving both electricity and wear on the pump.
– One Christmas Eve, the toilet in the house would not flush. My Uncle Tom told Grandpa to just take the toilet out and run a gutter from the front porch to the septic tank. Grandpa seriously considered doing this.
I still remember some of the good advice imparted on me that weekend — like “always bring a fly swatter into the outhouse with you.”
One of the younger relatives asked what she should do if she had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. The 90-year-old said “just go under the tree in the front yard – that way the coyotes won’t get you.” She held it.
Okay, I will admit to this….my dad’s mom (who is now 99) did not have indoor plumbing until I was ten or so. So I used the outhouse.
I will also say, based upon my childhood, I cannot look at gallon size tin cans without a combination shutter and snicker. You can use your imagination about how that came about. 🙂
The house may have looked like this when new (before the 1960s remodeling):
What a lovely piece, Jason. You needn’t have worried about length: I actually forgot which site I was on.
The farting story is a delight. Growing up with six siblings, 2 parents and one grandparent who were all capable of being uncouth, many elements of it are familiar.
My sister still lives in the family home, a mid-century modern weatherboard thing my parents built in ’59 (and much extended as more of us kids arrived), but sadly, in a much more benign climate than your house here, it is now close to needing replacement. That day will be hard one.
Bravo, Mr Shafer. High quality writing indeed.
Thank you. This whole piece was a one-sitting stream of consciousness.
With my grandfather having been the sixth of eight children, and my father-in-law the eighth of ten, I’ve heard many stories about how one simply needs to overcome any sensitivity about many bodily functions. Such taboo subjects in other households are open discussion in large families, it seems.
We know a family in which #13 is imminent. I can only imagine what their house must be like.
Do you remember anything about the kittens, and what are they doing on that pipe?
Also, I grew up in a house with real plaster-on-wood walls, and now as a condo- and apartment-hopper, I miss the solidness.
They look like ceramic lawn ornaments to me, but very realistic at first glance.
Wait, what?
That fooled me good and proper!
Those are indeed ceramic ornaments.
The house my parents bought last year was built in the early 1960s and has plaster on the walls. You are very correct about the solidness of that type of construction.
They also have a “Borg-Warner” branded toilet, no doubt still original to the place as it’s a baby blue.
This is a great story. I hope that the new owners appreciate all of that wood, especially the Pickwick knotty pine. I can relate to seeing that house being sold as my parents house was sold last year after being in the family for 94 years. Time marches on though and new people are creating memories of a lifetime in the places that we remember.
From what my mother has told me, the wood was a big hook for the buyers making an offer. It also helps the he-half of the new owners is familiar with the house, as his father has rented the pasture for years.
Very touching story, thank you. I can relate, In recent months I’ve been handling my parents estate including their home and a slow motion disassembly of two lifetimes memories. There’s nothing easy or pleasant about the task.
I’m glad to see your family home is loved and appreciated by a new generation. BTW is there a basement?
Yes, there is a basement. It is accessed via the door seen in the last picture of the kitchen.
Interestingly, the basement was recycled. Another house had sat in this spot prior to 1910. That house was moved 25′ and shifted 90 degrees, as I know the original house as being the tool shed. This house was then built on top of the existing basement.
The original house / tool shed was torn down by the new owners; the floor was rotten and the entire structure was starting to lean. However, they had a whale of a time tearing it down as it was built from tongue-in-groove lumber with the lumber running horizontal half way up, then turning to a vertical arrangement.
That’s fascinating. But not totally surprising. Folks were pretty pragmatic about such things back then.
Realistically, many first house built by Americans in their expansion across the country were built quite minimally, often lacking the details to ensure that they would last. Built quickly and cheaply from a pile of 2x4s and some flat boards for the interior walls, to be covered with newspapers, or wallpaper if they could afford it. Lath and plaster was something of a luxury item.
The board framing you describe was not totally uncommon, and was very common in Scandinavian region wood houses. I’ve seen a few of these in my travels out in the West, in old cabins and houses, some preserved.
Balloon framing, with 2x4s, was a fairly new American development. Before that, it was either timber framing, which was quite expensive and time consuming, and required large timbers, or log cabins, or board framing, as you describe.
Lumber mills were set up quickly as the Midwest and West was settled, so balloon framing quickly became the building technique of choice.
Here’s a picture of the original house / tool shed, taken from the corner of the existing house. It still looked pretty decent until about twenty years ago.
Nobody knew how old it was, other than ancient (for the area, anyway). Although you have raised a question in my mind – my great, great-grandfather owned multiple sawmills in the area way back when. I’m now curious if the wood used in this structure came from one of his sawmills.
That’s a typical gen1 house for that part of the world. I would guess 1850s-1860s or so. Possibly 1840s, depending on when this area was first settled.
You’ve reminded me that the Mennonites I stayed with in Iowa had an old small house out back, which had become the chicken house. The main house was a rather impressive full two story all-brick house. It was known to have been built by/for the German owner at the time, probably late 1860s or 1870s. It even had a wine cellar in the big basement, which the Mennonites put to use storing all of their home-canned goods.
Speaking of basements, what is the one in the main house made of?
It had a dirt floor. However, I’m wanting to say (and I was thinking about this a few hours ago) the walls were either concrete or bed rock. I was down there infrequently and it’s been a very long time, but this is what I remember them as being.
Although concrete was used on some early houses, my guess would have been stone given the likely time when the original house was built, especially since the floor was dirt. Stone basements with dirt floors were quite common in Iowa in the older houses.
Fun little memory: when I first left home and hitchhiked to Iow City in 1971, I found a place to crash, in a dirt floored stone basement that the tenants above were letting this kid use to live in. He had sown grass seeds and was trying to grow a lawn! Seriously.
It sprouted and grew a bit, but soon petered out for lack of light and adequate soil fertility. It soon was just a thin layer of dead organic debris. We made beds out of old doors stored in the basement, and hung them from the floor joists above.
Astro Turf would have been a better choice, but he was all about being natural.
Balloon construction fascinates me just because of the fact that in those days you could buy 2x4s that were 18′ or 20′ long. And straight.
They definitely had some good lumber back then. My house in New Orleans (a basic shotgun double) was built circa 1899. The floor joists are rough 2×12’s 25 feet long, spanning the full width of the house.
Hope the new owners will be keeping most of the paneling. Seems like that’s the first thing that “needs to go” on nearly every House Hunters episode on HGTV.
My brother and I still have the large 1964 rambler our folks bought in 1980. They immediately overhauled the kitchen. But the den and two bedrooms still have the original paneling and, while it isn’t that heavy tongue & groove stuff, it’s still thick and attractive. I wouldn’t change it.
Happy Motoring, Mark
From my understanding, the wood is staying. A cousin of mine lives up the road and bid on the place, telling my mom (his aunt) about ripping out all the wood and replacing it with drywall. My mother did not take well to this.
But the bids were what they were and this young couple purchased the place.
Fascinating story and very well written! Thank you for this Jason. At age 64 I have also had to go through this step of life with grand parents and parents. But the memories never end and In fact become more precious.
> Hope the new owners will be keeping most of the paneling. Seems like that’s the first thing that “needs to go” on nearly every House Hunters episode on HGTV.
Gawd I hate those HGTV renovators who summarily trash every authentic, well made item that belonged in the house and replace them with cheap but trendy stuff from the big-bog hardware store, until everything that made the house distinctive is gone.
Beautifully written, and quality writing means that length doesn’t matter.
Thanks for sharing your journey with us, as pleasant memories and good people are always welcome.
Thank you. At one point this was pushing 5,000 words. As one whose attention meanders after a while, I thought other’s would also. Thank for letting me know the length wasn’t a bother.
Outstanding story — this is interesting on so many different levels.
First, the house. As I’m writing this, I’m sitting on the porch of our 1920s-era stick-built house, so there’s aspects of your grandparents’ house that are awfully similar. Since I love historical research, I’ve looked into all of the past occupants of our house, which is fascinating. And since our house is largely original, it’s easy to envision those folks from the 1920s & ’30s going about their lives here.
Second, your family stories. Your grandparents’ generation had ways of doing things that are virtually forgotten, like sealing off the living room for half the year because it’s expensive to heat. Your grandparents seem like wonderful people; you’re fortunate to have known them so well, and I’m glad to have gotten to know them through your stories here over the years.
And that’s a wonderful house. By far my favorite part is the kitchen ceiling, but the whole house is
Eric, it’s a shame the kitchen floor was replaced about fifteen years ago. Previously the flooring was red and white checkerboard tile, likely from the 1940s or 50s. That flooring, combined with the tile and wood, really made for a visual pop.
Sadly, the tile began peeling at the edges and had to be taken out due to being a trip hazard. The kitchen never was quite right afterward.
From what has been gathered, my grandparent’s were either the second or third owners of the house. In 2017, subsequent to my grandmother having a mild stroke and being in the hospital, I made a day trip down there. Getting Grandpa from the house, we stopped at Chick-Fil-A on the way to the hospital (he had been eating nothing but sausage and potatoes for three days). The hostess that day was the niece of the builder and those two exchanged stories about the various family members for a half-hour.
Thanks for another great family story Jason
Thank you!
What a great story. You really captured your grandparents personalities with a few short sentences. I am dreading the day when I’ll have to clean out my parents house. Hopefully not for some time yet.
I also hope the new owners keep the paneling and don’t paint everything white and gray like everyone does nowadays. Tell them if they put up a live, laugh, love sign (or whatever people are doing right now) your grandmother will come back and haunt them.
The wood has been reported as staying. That was very welcomed news.
I can’t get over the double-stacked cupboards. Great house, great memories. I really like the pine walls.
I’m trying to register on the site, however it won’t let me.
A wonderful story! My family still owns the house I grew up in, the only house my parents ever owned. Built in either shortly after 1906 (after the big earthquake, by family lore) or in 1920 (according to county records) and bought by my parents in 1953. I still have their purchase papers; just 4 or 5 pages for the purchase contract and title report combined. It’s a modest wooden house, haphazardly remodeled over the years, and it had the same dark knotty pine paneling that I grew up with until my sister and I inherited it. We repainted the walls white, which certainly made it brighter and more livable, but it’s not the same. That might be a good thing, as it seems different enough that I don’t really feel much nostalgia when I come by to make the infrequently needed repairs. It’s holding up really well for a 100 year old house; no breakers in this one either, the main panel is 100% screw in fuses and there are no sub-panels. I’ve refreshed one bathroom and the kitchen, but the other bathroom still has the tiny sink and ancient faucets that I first used over 60 years ago.
Thanks for the tour and the trip back in time. Great stories, as usual, from the Shafer family archives.
As much as I like knotty pine paneling, someone here went a bit overboard! I’m guessing that was in the mid-late 60s, or so. Folks got tired of dealing with the cracks in the plaster and paneling was the hot fad at the time. At least much of it is real.
Before I left Iowa in 1976, pretty much every old house (except for the really nice ones owned by people who knew what they had) had been paneled, usually with the cheap dark 4×8 panels, and dropped ceilings with the acoustic tiles. Those are the first things renovators pull out.
Our 1929 house had one bedroom with the fake paneling. When we bought it in 1993, I did the quick and dirty thing of wallpapering it, as it was my daughter’s bedroom and that’s what she was into. But just last summer I finally tore out the paneling, repaired the plaster, and skim coated it to get rid of the “sand” finish (pimples, in our terminology). It looks great now. I’m finally getting really good at skim coating, and did our bedroom this winter. Can’t beat smooth plaster.
I wonder what the original porch and siding and exterior trim looked like. No old pictures o be found?
Thank you!
Pictures before the tornado are few and far between with their current whereabouts unknown. I suspect my mother may have them but I haven’t been able to find them.
Going from memory, the siding was a dark gray of some variety (but the film was also black/white). The back porch, where we always entered the house, had about four windows on each side of the wall where the door is. The repairs from the tornado dwindled that number to the two still seen today.
During a thunderstorm right after they moved in (Grandpa was naturally outside but under cover to see it all) showed the shingles heaving in the wind and revealing all three layers of them.
I’ve never seen any old pictures of what is technically the front of the house. There was also a barn that was blown down and I’ve never seen pictures of it, either, unfortunately.
One thing to do is check the county assessors website. My local county used to have every picture they took of the house available on line. Unfortunately a few years ago they purged the oldest ones and are now in a much harder to find archive. But up until 3 or 4 years ago they had pictures going back to the 50’s on each houses record page. Another local county has scanned all of the old assessor’s cards including the picture taped to each one.
There is also a car spotting part to this as well. I can tell you that at one point the King County assessor drove a dark colored 1950 Chevy Coupe and in Whatcom County they drove a light colored Fairmont 4dr that was replaced by a light colored K-car 4dr. Then there are the resident’s cars, there is a picture of a proper period custom van taken in the early 80’s in the driveway of one of my houses.
I’m with you, I like real wood, that hasn’t been painted, but this is a little too much for my taste. One of the houses I own I bought in part because of its living room of original to the house, late 70’s clear cedar covering every wall and the ceiling. However it ends there with the rest of the rooms done in drywall.
I remember the cheap paneling craze, was doing some organizing of my supplies recently and came across a container of color matched panel nails that I obtained when cleaning out my late FIL’s stash of hardware ect a couple of years ago.
As a young’un I helped with a couple of room paneling projects and remember those packages of nails, which of course is part of the reason I kept the pack I have.
It’s weird, but these pictures made the wood upstairs much more, uh, vivid that it was in person. For whatever reason my daughter was having trouble getting these upstairs pictures – maybe because the wood didn’t provide the needed contrast?
I took out the cheap dark paneling (those flatish 4×8 sections) in a large downstairs family room of a French style 1935 San Francisco house. The paneling had been put up with something like Liquid Nails (a lot of it) so it was impossible to remove without a lot of the plaster coming along with it, or a lot of hardened glue left on the wall to be chipped off. Fortunately, as a more “casual” room, it was plastered in a non-flat style, so it was not hard to fix up to match.
The living room in that house was Dutchmanned (muslin glued to the walls like wallpaper and then painted) for some reason. Might have been common but I never saw that before. It was peeling off so we just removed it, did a bit of repair, and repainted.
The real knotty pine all over this house is a different thing. I also would have left it, at least mostly. I hope they were able to keep the original kitchen cabinets. Often the steel sink unit is chipped and rusted though.
I think the two wire electrical wiring, the norm until the 1960’s or so, isn’t lacking a neutral. It is a hot wire and a neutral. It is lacking a ground.
The 1935 house was was only 55 years old at the time, but the original galvanized water pipes were still in use. Turning on any faucet and you got a small stream of low pressure water. In that amount of time the pipes had turned into soda straws. Fortunately, all the living area of the house (other than that family room) was as usual on the second level, so all the pipes were exposed and not in some horrible crawl space or in a slab.
The two wire wiring was just in black tapelike stuff, which I’ve seen up to 1950’s construction. Sometimes I’ve seen it dried up but this stuff was OK so we left it. The kitchen had been rewired in 1968 and a breaker panel installed. Since houses in my Brooklyn neighborhood are around $900K to $1.2M, I’m surprised that Zillow only has that one at $1.5M.
My parents owned three houses in different places over the years. Correcting for inflation they all are worth about what they paid for them.
You win some, you lose some.
I sure wish CC had editing, and also a thumbs up function. (I’ve written that about ten times).
Anyway:
“Fortunately, all the living area of the house (other than that family room) was as usual on the second level, so all the pipes were exposed and not in some horrible crawl space or in a slab.”
So the pipes were in the open ceiling of the garage level, like in a house with a basement. And we replaced them with copper. A friend of mine once did the same thing, got it all done, turned the water on and “it was like a sprinkler system”. I guess they learned how to solder better then.
Galvanized pipes inherently become plugged up by rust and scale as the zinc coating wears away. It takes some 30-80 years, depending on the water’s mineral content.
I’ve had to replace almost all of the galvanized pipes in our house as well as in my rentals. PEX to the rescue! So easy to install. Unless of course it’s in a really difficult area like in second floors.
I think the two wire electrical wiring, the norm until the 1960’s or so, isn’t lacking a neutral. It is a hot wire and a neutral. It is lacking a ground.
I missed that part that Jason wrote about the wiring. Strictly speaking, it’s not lacking a ground either, as the neutral is grounded at the panel. In technical terms (by the code), the neutral is called “the grounded conductor”, whereas the ground is called “the grounding conductor”. yes, that whole issue gets a bit confusing, but in essence, what is commonly referred to as the the ground (bare copper wire) is there to only tie together all of the metal/steel parts of those appliances that have such things, so that in case the hot wire touches a steel/conducting metal part of the appliance, it then forces the the current to also go through the neutral conductor, as the two (neutral and ground) are tied together at the panel. That in turn means that the stray current/short overloads the circuit breaker or fuse, causing it to break the circuit.
In a two wire system, if the hot wire were to contact the steel/metal area of the appliance, it would not cause an overload and trigger the breaker. And then if someone touched that metal part as well as touching another conductor at the same time, potentially lethal current would flow through the person acting as a conductor for the stray current when it is now able to travel to a ground.
The easiest fix if people are anxious about two-wire outlets is to install a GFCI outlet, since it essentially functions like a third bare grounding wire. That is a fully code-approved thing, BTW.
And of course with metal pipes those get grounded to the panel too, just in case hot wire in the wall were to chafe on a pipe and energize them.
One reason some people say that the wiring has no neutral is that for a time there was bare neutral cable. My duplexes that were built in the 40’s used that. It was a cloth insulation over wrap surrounding a hot wire that had its own cloth/rubber insulation and a bare neutral wire. So it some ways it looks like the early cloth covered Romex that is missing its neutral wire.
I am going to bet that the knotty pine dates to the 50s, possibly before. I have that stuff in my basement, and it is solid tongue-in-groove planks about 1/2 inch thick that have had some milling done to the front along one edge (either the tongue side or the groove side, I forget).
The dark stuff in the TV room is what you are describing, and it was hot stuff in the midwest in the 60s and 70s. We got nonstop weekend TV ads for “The Panel Mart” for a long time when I was a kid.
Yes, the knotty pine paneling was in the house when they moved in. Same for the upstairs. My grandfather was not big on home renovation and the downstairs sheet paneling was the only real revision he made to the inside.
There is hardwood flooring under the carpet in the living room. That room, along with the TV room, kept carpet as there is still the cutout area for the floor furnace in both rooms.
Incidentally, their original telephone is still functioning great; it’s the one made in Indianapolis. It is hanging in my downstairs bathroom as it is the only room down there with a phone jack.
Agreed about the popularity of knotty pine in the 50s. My parents house in Towson had it in the built out basement, from 1953.
In maybe a first for me, reading something on CC actually had me feeling a little misty at the end.
So much here. Jason, thanks for this. Looking through these pictures accompanying the text, one could get a sense of generations of lives lived in this century-old farmhouse.
Other stuff resonated with me, personally, as I remembered visiting my grandparents’ own rural farmhouse in northwestern Ohio:
– While I do remember a few unpleasant things about being there (the spooky sounds of the random semi truck passing in the night; the well water made everything taste like sewage-lite), it was largely a place of bliss for me;
– Their bedroom was off limits (in all caps). I think I saw it maybe twice in my life;
– Everybody entered through the side door near the kitchen. I would have been seriously freaked out if someone knocked on the front door. Way too close to the dining room and living room, where all of us usually were.
This was some fine writing and a good story, and thanks also to your daughter for supplying the pictures.
Joe, thank you on all counts.
That’s too bad about the well water at your grandparents. Both of my grandparents had well water and their water was always fabulous tasting.
However, toward the end, the well at this house was showing its age and the water was turning murky. There is no telling what was used to line the hole and how it had aged, other than the tell-tale signs.
Interesting thing about bedrooms. While I was always in and out of my parents bedroom I was almost never in my grandparents bedroom. I believe I saw my paternal grandparents bedroom once. That is amazing in itself since they lived in one of those tall brown tenement apartments buildings in the Bronx as there was only an entry, living room, kitchen and a bathroom.
My other grandparents lived first just south of the Throgs Neck Bridge and not more than a few blocks where a Trump golf course is. Was wide open in the late 50s. My mother grew up in that house. Never saw their bedroom there. They then moved across the GW to Garfield and never saw their bedroom there.
Perhaps my most vivid memory is seeing the two basements they had in those houses as well as our house basement in Bogota. All houses had used coal for heat. The house in the Bronx was using coal while the other two were converted to oil but the basements stayed in their raw state. They were very dark, very dusty and the central furnace would be on and you could see the flames through the front gate. Scared the crap out of me and I would never go down the stairs. Our house in Bogota eventually had the basement finished off but left when eight. I can still see those furnaces roaring away at the age of four.
Yeah I don’t think I ever saw any of my grandparent’s bedrooms and we sure visited a fair amount when I was a kid. I guess that was a thing. I know my kids though are very familiar with their grandparents’ rooms, mainly due to there being an additional TV in there.
My Grandparents (both sides) lived in NE PA, and though one side of the family moved a little (always in the same town!) the other side had been in the same place since before I was born…since my Dad had a job (not military) where we move around a lot, I always considered their home as my stable location, as I of course visited there hundred or so of times during my life until my Grandmother got ill and moved in with my Uncle, and he eventually sold the place after 2004. Like many places in that area it was originally coal heated, even had a coal stove in the kitchen (which was like a furnace in the summer…no air conditioning). They owned a mom/pop grocery store which was on the first level (basement went out to grade on main st in their town) which they closed around 1975 when my Grandmother finally retired. They bought her a refrigerator for the kitchen, belive it or not, they would use the commerical refrigerators in the store in lieu of having their own refrigerator (didn’t keep much, I remember a pot of ice tea that my Uncle was fond of drinking, but not much beyond daily use). Eventually they converted to oil (my grandmother couldn’t go down the stairs to shovel coal into the furnace anymore!) and they stopped using the coal stove, even though it was a permanent fixture in their kitchen. No knotty pine, it had the old plaster walls with wallpaper, kind of a 1700’s scene in the living room. There were 2 pictures of balarinas in the living room, which I found out were original paintings by someone my mother knew who asked her what she wanted a painting of, and did them himself (my mother tried to give them back to the family after he died, to no avail).
I remember those scary grates going down to the basement for the heating system. My other grandmother had an immense iron grate in the living room floor that went down to the furnace, guess it was forced air, it the house they were living in when I was born, but they moved to another house by the time I was 7, which had forced hot water (steam) heating instead.
My Grandfather on my mother’s side was a coal miner until he saved up enough to buy the property where they lived, and opened the store. He died of miner’s asthma, on the same day of the Texas Tower shooting (54 years ago now)..his store was open 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, they put in long hours to get what they had, but did alright, though hardly prosperous.
Great writeup! I remember using 4X8 sheets of paneling in the basement of my last house. It is likely long gone by now.
This house has a great story, and a long history. I am optimistic the new couple will take good care of it.
An amusing and fascinating tale, Jason. Obviously a place that will always play a big part in your memory. As someone who lived in the same house for 54 years (1959-2013) I know how accustomed you can get to the foibles (for which read drawbacks/failings/shortcomings, etc.) of a place. I don’t ever want to go back there though because I know there would be almost nothing of what I remember. I will always carry it with me as it was though.
Thank you.
Agreed. When I went by the house back in February, it was with great trepidation.
Windows have been replaced, outbuildings torn down, excavation for a new septic system, siding off the house – it really didn’t look anything like I remembered, rendering it to be a different house entirely.
You are correct about things not being as remembered. Sometimes that isn’t all bad.
Thank you Jason for sharing this wonderfully told story of a beautiful home. Sad to see it leave your family. The warm memories thankfully will last indefinitely.
I’m particularly impressed by the large footprint of the home. So many farmhouses built in this style required additions, as the original structure was so limited in space.
The footprint is sizable. The dimensions were on the appraisal, but darned if I remember what they were.
Overall, I’m glad it went to who it did. The neighbor (whose house can be seen in a few pictures) wanted it to simply tear it down. I told my mom if he bid to throw his bid in the trash; he talked a good game but didn’t bid. My cousin also bid but, well, let’s just say nobody was wild about what all he had in mind. You always want things you are fond of to go to good people and that was definitely the case here. That is success.
It’s a lovely home, and I’m sure the couple were really attracted to its charm, and the nice size. It’s not cramped at all. The lot appears perfect for a large garden as well.
The neighbour may have planned to have the lot broken up, with the intent of building multiple homes.
Most Canadians are really sympathizing, and hoping the best for the US right now. It’s horrible what you guys are going through. I just hope your economy can stabilize. And a potential effective vaccine can be approved by early 2021 or sooner.
Wonderful story! You mentioned your grandparents drying ginseng in the house – was the house in Wisconsin, which has a ginseng industry?
No, the house is located outside of Scott City, Missouri, which is just south of Cape Girardeau in the southeast part of the state.
Thanks, Jason–great reading, well done. The metal roof is a goodie–should last a long time. It’s probably a taken-for-granted choice in a rural Midwest location, but would raise eyebrows in town ?
It’s not the pine boards that dazzle, for some too much–it’s all those knots !
I recently was told by an old-timer here in San Francisco that fabric-covered painted or papered plaster walls are often found in older houses; he said it was to prevent minor cracks from being seen on the surface.
Sand plaster, like so many materials, suffers once painted. Wright liked it–integrally colored a soft cream or tan, and especially nice on ceilings, complete with subtle swirl marks.
Here, where it doesn’t freeze, many older houses originally without plumbing have drain lines (at least) attached to exterior walls. You don’t see that in snow country !
Thanks for the explanations of house wiring, Paul–I’ve bookmarked the thread for that reason. ‘Twicity befuddles me . . .
Here’s the more detailed explanation from this site:https://www.eetimes.com/the-myth-of-the-neutral-wire/#
The origin of the 3-wire system
A principal goal of power system design is to make sure that any user who touches the exposed metal surfaces of two pieces of equipment at once will not be subjected to an electrical shock.
A shock hazard is caused when two exposed metal surfaces have different voltages. The most common type of shock hazard occurs when the hot wire or circuits connected to the hot wire accidentally come in contact with an exposed metal part of some piece of equipment.
Electrical power flows in the form of current, which must pass through the equipment and then return to the power source. Therefore, it is convenient to think of one wire to the load being the “source” wire and one being the “return” wire. This simple model is appropriate for DC systems but does not work for an AC system because the flow of the power is continually reversing direction with a frequency of 50 or 60 times per second. From the point of view of the equipment or the power source, the source and return wires are constantly being interchanged. In fact, no equipment can tell which wire is which! It is easily demonstrated that the two power wires to any piece of AC equipment can be interchanged without any affect on function. In fact, in Europe, unlike North America, the plug on a piece of equipment can be plugged in either way! (The asymmetrical offset ground pin on the North American 3-wire outlet makes it impossible to reverse the connection of the two power wires). This fact of symmetry seems to be at odds with the distinct labeling of the AC power wires as “hot” and “neutral”.
The reason that one of the power wires is named “neutral” is because it is connected directly to the building ground connection at the circuit breaker panel. Therefore it is connected directly to the grounding (third) wire. In essence, then, two of the three wires at the wall receptacle are actually grounded wires, one being used for power flow, and the other connected only to exposed metal parts on the equipment. The power wire that is grounded is called the “neutral” wire because it is not dangerous with respect to exposed metal parts or plumbing. The “hot” wire gets its name because it is dangerous.
The grounding of the neutral wire is not related to the operation of electrical equipment but is required for reasons of safety. To reduce the chance of electrical shock, it is important to provide a means to automatically shut down the electrical circuit if an exposed metal part becomes accidentally connected to a hot conductor or circuit. This is accomplished using the 3-wire system by an ingenious technique:
Every electrical circuit is protected by a circuit breaker. The purpose of the circuit breaker is to prevent the building wiring from overheating as a result of excessive user loads being plugged in. However, in the 3-wire system, the circuit breaker provides another critical safety function. If a hot wire or circuit were to become accidentally connected to an exposed metal part on a piece of equipment, then a shock hazard would exist. However, if the exposed parts are connected to the grounding wire, then the hot wire becomes connected to the grounding wire. This would not cause anything unusual to happen except for the fact that the second power wire, the neutral wire, is also connected to the grounding wire at the circuit breaker panel. Therefore, for this safety hazard the grounding wire essentially becomes connected as a load. The low resistance of the grounding wire causes it to draw a very large amount of current when it becomes inadvertently connected as a load, which in turn causes the circuit breaker feeding the hot wire to trip. Therefore, the 3-wire system operates in a manner which transforms a safety hazard into an over current condition, causing the safety hazard to be automatically cleared by the circuit breaker. The circuit breaker is used as both an over current protector and a shock hazard protector.
Conclusion
The neutral wire is associated with many misunderstandings and myths related to power quality. In fact, the neutral wire and the hot wire are interchangeable from the point of view of protected equipment. A proper understanding of issues associated with the neutral wire can help to ensure that power system designs are implemented for the right reasons.
And here’s another good one about polarity:
The Neutral and hot wires are interchangeable and reversible insofar as the operation of equipment is concerned. This leads to the questions as to why in North America one of the power prongs is slightly different in size from the other. A natural but wrong conclusion is that proper “polarization” is important to the proper operation of equipment.
The actual answer as to why plugs are polarized in North America is found in a ubiquitous appliance: the screw-in incandescent lamp. This appliance, standardized long ago, violates many modern safety regulations but is too common to outlaw. The power connections to the bulb involve the threaded socket and the recessed “button” at the bottom of the socket. The only reason why the prongs on the two prong plug are different sizes is to ensure that the more dangerous connection, the more accessible threaded socket, is always connected to the neutral, or safer, wire. All modern two prong appliances and office equipment are designed so that they can be plugged in either way and they just use the standard plug, which happens to have the differently sized prongs.
BTW, really old outlets don’t have a polarity (size) difference, as well as really old plugs. I used to wonder about that; no more.
“as well as really old plugs”
The plugs are not necessarily that old. Within the last 15 or 20 years I had a fire case where the manufacturer of a small appliance ruled out his device being plugged in because the outlet pulled from the debris had a polarity-specific plug inserted, and he pointed out that his device had never used a plug like that – and it was still being manufactured at that time.
Quite true. In fact non-polarized plugs/cords (not outlets) are still common today, like in most AC/DC converters/chargers for electronic devices.
As long as it’s used in a situation/appliance where it’s not potentially critical and/or double insulated, non polarized power cords are fine and acceptable.
I was referring to their ubiquity once upon a time, before polarization was required for outlets and lighting appliances and others where it could be a hazard.
It’s doubtful the metal roof would raise too many eyebrows in very many towns around there. Most are of enough practical bent to realize the advantage.
We had a hail storm here in March that necessitated a new roof. I looked into a metal roof (and I’m in town, sort of) but knowing I won’t be in this house for fifty years, I opted to save a few bucks and go with asphalt shingles again.
No, that isn’t the water heater mentality!!!
Metal roofs are the greatest!
I just put down galvanized sheets on the very top section of our house. Three foot wide by 20′ long; 10 of them. Screwed them right down over the old asphalt/fiberglass shingles. No tear off or hauling to the dump. It took exactly 6 hours for the whole job, including cutting hole and flashing for one vent and the side gable trim.
Cost: $1 per square foot. Will last 60-80 years.
That’s the way to do it!
With insurance involved, I had to do the tear-off. My final cost wasn’t exactly $1 per foot…
One does need to check the screws and gaskets somewhat regularly, however. I believe it is common to have to replace them after about 20 years—and much sooner if the house has any condensation issues.
I don’t agree. The screws are hot-dipped galvanized; should last every bit as long as the roof or longer. The neoprene washers will of course eventually be affected by UVs, but I suspect longer than 20 years for sure.
Keep in mind that this is how just about every metal commercial/shop/outbuilding is constructed. We did a new house with this same system 26 years ago, and it’s in great shape.
Is it possible that a drop or two might eventually get through? Yes, but that’s why the old roof or appropriate subroof is there.
Having said that, in heavy snow and ice country, I would recommend a standing seam metal roof. For that matter, a sanding seam metal roof is intrinsically better in certain regards, but a screwed down roof seems to be very effective, and much cheaper.
Well, you’re lucky that you can use the old shingles for backup, but nevertheless, this is what the experts recommend for a normal installation. Galvanizing is not necessarily the issue; rather, it is whether the screws remain fully engaged to the decking material. Freeze-thaw cycles can mess with the fasteners. But perhaps more often, and especially as we put more insulation into our houses, condensation in the roof system can cause the decking to deteriorate and fail to hold the screw. When you see a roof shedding fasteners or shingles near the ridge, this is probably the first thing to look for. If it is shedding them lower, it is probably wicking from ice dams, at least in the snowbelt. All that said, I don’t really like galvey screws, as the coating on them can be quite uneven. You can often see rust spots on them in the package. I’ll be doing a standing seam roof next year, my first one…trying to decide whether to vent it or not vis-a-vis condensation.
Good luck on yours!
We don’t have freeze-thaw cycles out here. 🙂
And condensation is not generally an issue either, in a properly vented attic. I’ve never run into damaged old sheathing due to condensation out here.
It works well in the settings I use it for. YMMV.
I enjoyed your story tremendously. It was very poignant…
Thank you. Writing it was both cathartic and bitter. But it needed to wait until the players were all gone. Sadly, they now are.
What a great story which many people can relate to. There’s nothing more heart-wrenching than disassembling a loved one’s long-term home that you’ve spent a significant amount of time in.
It’s great that the buyers respect the house and intend to keep the character intact. That has not been my experience. My parents’ first and only home was a cute red brick with white trim tract house that they had built for us in a development so new there were few paved roads when we moved in. I was allowed to pick out the bathroom tile. The current owner chose to paint the entire house (bricks, trim, doors) a vomit-inducing pastel peach color. They even replaced the driveway with painted pavers of the same color. My brother owned a similar corner lot house with a luscious green yard. The new buyer immediately surrounded the entire property with a six foot chain-link fence and replaced the grass with gravel, making the property resemble an impound lot.
Isn’t it irritating to see what buyers do? I’ve had three houses previously and have been by all of them within the last fifteen months or so. The second (and best) has changed the most with the third being close behind. Like your experience, both have had fences erected.
What a great write-up, Jason. Thank you!
It occurred to me as I read the piece that my wife and I are living the same life in our home.
We’ve lived here 29 years (longer than I’ve ever lived anywhere else).
The house is close to 100 years old. Some of our rooms have the knotty pine paneling.
We have a well (a relatively new one; the original well failed).
A new hot water heater has been installed (twice).
After a small electrical fire in 1999, the connection for electricity from the pole had to be completely redone, and the fuses replaced with circuit breakers.
The roof was replaced in 2015.
And we will probably be here until one or both of us pass on.
I will join the chorus of folks who loved this tour. I have been in many of these old farmhouses. This one looks much like one my sister has, an ancient house that got a huge updating some time in the 50s then sparing updates since.
I love the knotty pine tongue-in-groove paneling, and am well familiar with it in my own basement from 1958. I think it was popular in the 40s too. The more modern sheet paneling in the TV room, well that is not so much my style. It is interesting that there are some charming early 20th century features trying to let us know what the house looked like originally.
I have done the emptying-out of loved ones’ houses thing a few times now, and it is not all that fun – as you note. But how great that you got a good, solid lifetime of great memories from that place. Thanks for taking us along for a few of them.
What a lovely, melancholy remembrance. Thank you for sharing it.
It reminds me of my experience with my only grandparents, my mom’s parents, ad my dad’s parents were both gone by the time I was born. They lived in a single-wide trailer on a small lake in southwest Michigan. My best memories from childhood happened then. My grandparents, who were married during the Great Depression, were raging alcoholics, but otherwise were salt-of-the-earth people who anchored me in ways I’m not sure I understand fully even now, more than 30 years after they passed.
Late to the party, but I’ll add my compliments on a wonderful remembrance, much of which I can relate to in our own family history* as well as the 18-½ year-long remodel of our farmhouse.
*We, too, were banned from “Granny & Grandpa’s” bedroom. Though I lived with Granny from 1980–88 while in college and before marrying (Grandpa passed the summer after my freshman year), I was in their bedroom only a handful of times until she decided on her own it was time to move to assisted living.
Fascinating story and pictures – thanks for sharing, and I love the wood!
One question that has long intrigued me – how, in a north American winter, do you keep a house built of wood warm? Here in the UK, a house of that age (like the one I grew up in) would be 2 leaves of brick with a gap between them (nowadays filled with foam or insulation, but back then just a gap!), with plaster on the inside wall and single glazed wooden windows – and they could be chuffing freezing even in our mild winters before central heating was installed (widely, not until the 1970s).
and they could be chuffing freezing even in our mild winters before central heating was installed
Of course they would; everyone knows brick and stone houses are cold. Why? Because brick and stone have terrible insulation factors (R factor). As in 0.20 R per inch of thickness. They’re great conductors of heat, not insulators!
The better question is: how, in the UK winter, do you keep a house built of brick warm? 🙂
Wood has an R factor of 1 per inch. So the solid wood sheathing and siding alone add up to approx. R2. If there’s boards on the inside, more.
Prior to insulation, wood houses were kept warm by the very cheap fuel in the US. Wood was just there for the cutting. Coal, oil and gas were historically very cheap here.
Insulating attics with sawdust or some other insulating material was common going back a long ways. Starting in the 20s or so, insulation in the wall cavity started to become somewhat common, accelerating by the 1940s and ubiquitous in the 1950s. That dramatically increased the R value of the wall, from some R4-5 to R11 and greater.
Since the first energy crisis, almost all older wood house were upgraded with attic insulation and wall insulation (cellulose or loose fill fiberglass) blown into the wall cavities through small holes drilled into the walls then plugged.
In more modern times, wood house shave increasingly become highly insulated, and a wood house intrinsically is much easier to insulate because the lack of the massive thermal bridging that masonry walls create.
In Germany, Scandinavia, Austria, etc. wood houses are becoming more common as it’s much easier to build a super-insulated house to create a net-zero house with wood. Almost the only way, actually.
My house is partially masonry and partially wood. I can assure you the wood portion is much warmer than the cold brick walls in the winter.
In the Seattle area insulation didn’t start gaining popularity until the 70’s. I’ve had a number of properties that got the drill a hole in the outside wall, insulate and the corresponding plugs. One had expanding foam and when I tore into that wall how many years later it had shrunk. The others were filled with the shredded and treated news paper. I also had a duplex with Vermiculite that was in the ceiling and the paper in the walls. It was quite fun rewiring those places.
I’ve found early fiberglass batts in a couple of my houses, one from 1947, another from the 50s. Something like R4 or R6. Needless to say I replaced them when the walls were opened.
The PNW climate is relatively mild and wood products to burn were cheap if not free. In Eugen the main heating fuel was wood by products, available for free from mills and such. A combination of wood chips and bark.
In cold areas of the US, I’ve read about insulation being used back to the turn of the 20th century or even earlier. Europeans coming from Scandinavia and such had an appreciation for insulation.
Log cabins have a lot of insulation value, and they would pour sawdust or moss or other materials into the roof/attic.
All the houses I’ve owned that were 1957 or older received the post construction wall insulation. From there the next oldest is from 1977 and by then insulation was required by code.
Our farmhouse had blown-in insulation in most of the exterior walls and in all the upstairs ceilings (house had a walk-up attic, so the roof rafters were not insulated) – likely installed sometime between the 1950s and 1970s. A few exterior walls had pink fiberglass insulation, probably installed in the 1970s or so, which appeared to be the date of the last major remodel of the house.
Since we did a complete tearout/tearoff of both the interior plaster & lath as well as the exterior aluminum siding and original wood siding underneath, I was able to not only do a complete rewire, but also completely re-insulate with proper house wrap and vapor barriers. Our LP gas heating bill dropped by half our second winter there!
Thanks Paul – every day’s a skool day! And, to answer your quesiton, even in a UK winter, you struggled!
Thank you!
Even though cold is cold regardless of location, where this house is located is in a reasonably temperature part of the US, relatively speaking. January is the coldest month with average highs being 42 F / 6 C and average lows of 24 F / -5 C. This is roughly 15 to 20 degrees F warmer than Minneapolis.
But to your question, I do know the living room got quite cold over the winter and the windows had single pane glass. The degree of insulation in the house is unknown.
Your story about running over the grates of the furnace barefooted brings back memories. My late grandmother’s house had a floor furnace with metal grating over it.
One day-I think maybe I was five-I ran over it barefooted-that was definitely a learning experience for me. I never did that again. There was a grate in the second story floor above the furnace for heat. Very little heat got into the second floor, in the winter it was
cold. I would pile on the blankets to stay warm.
Staying in one place for a long time used to be common in Bay Area neighborhoods of my youth. In modern Silicon Valley people tend to move around chasing jobs and careers much more frequently. Once I made my way back to San Jose it was our (my Wife and I ) priority to buy a house. We bought something small then traded up to something bigger a couple of years later. We moved into our current house in 1987. It was built in the early 1970’s. We have lived there now for 33 years. It is the only house that my children have ever lived in. We have discussed moving out of the area for years, but we decided to just stay put. If we are fortunate enough to live another twenty or more years, we will have lived here for over fifty years! Just like all those old folks in the old Days! La casa de los vejitos.
It was a Brady Bunch era house when we moved in. Harvest gold appliances, peach shag carpet, tri tone ( harvest gold, avocado green, and orange) plaid wall paper in a couple of rooms! Our house was a model, and served as the the sales office so it was fully decorated in the mode of the Day. We did out first refresh back in the early 1990s. We are almost finished with the second refresh, it will be the last.
Beautiful paean to life Jason, just beautiful. Like others above, I can relate. My mother’s brother owns the family farm which my great-great-grandparents broke in from bush and scrub over 100 years ago, but when he retired to the seaside 5 years ago, he started to sell bits of the farm. Among the parts sold was my late grandparents’ house which was built in 1946 for my grandmother’s brother, and which my grandparents moved into in 1976 when they took over the farm. Like you and your grandparents, I knew that house and its stories intimately. It was a huge wrench for the family when it was sold, but we all knew life marches on and had a farewell party in the house, remembering all the good times over the 70 years. My Uncle is now selling my great-grandparent’s cottage on the farm, which they built over 100 years ago, and in which my grandmother was born in 1921. Again, it’s a wrench but life moves on, her descendants (including me as the eldest grandchild) all live their own lives elsewhere, building their own futures and memories. C’est la via. And thank you Jason for sharing your memories.
Thanks for the great story. I’ll just add a couple of observations that I don’t think others have touched one.
The wooden ceiling tiles appear identical to what was in my grandparents’ dining room on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. I have never seen them anywhere else until now. My grandfather built the house around 1958 and used a number of advanced and unusual materials and techniques. For instance, it was one of the first houses in town with central AC.
Also, the door trim in the TV room looks identical to the historic home my wife bought in Madison, Indiana. It was built circa 1900 and has the original trim.
Many people who enjoy old cars also like old houses, so this felt right at home on the site.
I’m just getting to this HOAL story, Jason—quite a morning of appreciative comments, which were the dessert following your fine and touching article. (It would have been far less meaningful to me 50 years ago, but time marches on!)
REDECORATION: Yeah, the fashion cycle of colors and finishes is quite something, and everyone cringing to “what were they **thinking** back then?” on Facebook these days will soon enough have someone younger buying **their** place, and saying the same things.
INSULATION/ELECTRICITY: My knowledge is still limited, but I had a 20s home for almost 30 years, and so learned plenty.
AUTOMOBILES: I have no memory of your—or any commenter’s—mention of cars at all today, which might be a CC “first.” I didn’t miss it at all!
BTW, this came to mind: In one Bill Bryson book, he recalls a midlife reunion with an old school buddy, catching up on things, etc. Bryson says something like “and I knew the next time we visit we’d likely be comparing brands of storm windows, etc.”———and I chuckle knowingly..,..
Once More: A very nice essay for us today. In my mother’s words, “just remember, friends come and go, but family is family all your life.”
I’m glad to see this post again. While not having much to do with cars, it certainly is one of the best posts of 2020.
I’d echo that. Appropriate for the holiday season after a tough year