Surveying Interior Wood Casings to Distinguish Original from Alteration

There are several methods for distinguishing original construction inside your home from later alterations and additions. You can look for source documents, such as permits, photos, or drawings as evidence of your home in a previous condition. You can look at floor plans of typical homes of the time period and try to determine if your house's layout ever fit that arrangement or something similar, and interviewing former occupants may be the most helpful. Additionally, you can examine the existing physical details,...

Read More »

Interpreting Historic House Blueprints

The conception of most buildings, residential houses included, has historically involved some sort of architectural drawing. Whether crudely crafted as a rough hand sketch or professionally drafted and reproduced, drawings serve to visualize, communicate, and translate a building's design. I've written before about the importance of at least making an inquiry at your local building department regarding the possible existence of your home's original permit drawings. The older your house is, the more likely you are to...

Read More »

Saturday Spotlight- Circa 1926 Dutch Colonial Revival in Havertown

This week's Saturday Spotlight takes us into Delaware County for the first time, with this Dutch Colonial Revival in Havertown, PA. Image via listing of Erica Deuschle, BHHS, Fox & Roach Realtors The 2,500 square-foot home is a quintessential example of this Revival subtype, ubiquitous in the northeast United States in the first half of the 20th century. The gambrel roof (with a steeper pitch at the start of the second floor, meeting a shallower pitch up top) is what defines a Dutch Colonial Revival. True...

Read More »

Who Designed My House?!? Was It a Kit House?

I am an architect by profession. Although the firm for which I am employed does not design single-family houses, I have designed a single-family house in the past. I might never design my own personal new-construction home from the ground up as some architects do, but I do have designs in my head for an upwards addition to this current home. I currently live in a 1920's bungalow of simple and unadorned design-- although I would pine for a slightly larger-scale home with superb Craftsman details. My wife and I both...

Read More »

Finding and Interpreting Historical Aerial Photographs to Inform the History of Your House

When attempting to determine an exact construction date for a home, we often turn to maps to aid in this effort. This is, of course, as a form of visual/graphic evidence in conjunction with other documentary evidence, such as deeds, mortgages, etc. Not to be overlooked, however, are historical aerial photographs. In the same way that maps from various years can help to narrow down a range of possible construction dates or to observe development of a neighborhood over time, aerial photographs can provide a literal and...

Read More »

Physical Evidence: Ceramic Tiles Pop Up in the Bathroom, Revealing Old Vinyl Flooring

Slowly, over the last month, the grouted joints between the ceramic tiles in our main bathroom have begun to crack. This has occurred to a minor degree ever since we moved into the house nearly two years ago, but only recently began to become a real issue. The joint cracking was also more significant at the area right against the tub. I had already previously noticed that the perimeter of the ceramic tile floor (against the walls and against the tub) were hard grouted joints, rather than flexible sealant joints, leaving...

Read More »

Using Available Homestead Records on Ancestry

Two weeks ago I was apprised of a newly available set of Homestead records by genealogy blogger Randy Seaver, in a post at his blog "Genea-Musings". These records are available at Ancestry and are images of original Homestead records for the states of Arizona, Indiana, Nebraska, Nevada, Ohio, and a portion of Iowa. While the aim of a site like Ancestry is to allow subscribers to search for documents related to their family history, many of the available records hold some applicability to house history research. Indeed,...

Read More »