1925 - J William Beckman House - IN

[A.Fox]

Continuing the tour from last summer on the other half of the house:

IMG_20180602_092829810.jpg (1.45 MiB) Viewed 1730 times

IMG_20180602_092842718.jpg (1.49 MiB) Viewed 1730 times

In the dining room we get all sorts of mixed reactions on the wallpaper. We are thinking about keeping it, but another wallpaper border in the crown has to go. It's still a current pattern if it got damaged during the other work in the house.

This has always been a wallpapered house. And the old wallpaper seems to have always been removed before hanging new, so there isn't any physical evidence of what was there originally. The walls are a cement based plaster finished only to a brown coat. Then the walls and ceiling were covered in a liner paper. In most rooms this liner paper from some era is still intact. This liner was then painted or wallpapered over to create the final finish. Evidence shows that some of the rooms may have last only had the painted liner, which had a linen texture. We found a bold yellow in the foyer and gray-brown in the living room behind the baseboard radiators.

IMG_20180721_062325312.jpg (784.39 KiB) Viewed 1730 times

This little 8'x9' room is off the foyer and the kitchen. The previous owner called it a buttler's pantry and had it outfitted with cabinets for china and servingware. But it's location doesn't make sense related to the dining room. The grandson did not know what it's original purpose was, but said that his grandmother Mary Beckman had her bedroom here, and his mother Helen used it as a reading and sewing room.

We have made this our breakfast room. It gets great light and just fits a table for four. That could have been its original purpose, or perhaps it was a space for the hired help. This house unlike some of its neighbors doesn't have a maid/servant bedroom, so it doesn't seem they had a live in maid, but there are remnants of a call system, so there may have been someone who worked in the house during the day. Call it a flex room then.

20180620_103143.jpg (748.74 KiB) Viewed 1730 times

Lastly on this floor is the kitchen. Maybe the least exciting for old house enthusiasts. At only 9' wide, and 17' long it feels like an unusually shaped and sized kitchen even for it's day compared to the size of the house. it also connects directly to the dining room. The cabinets are actually mid 1950s vintage and I think were originally blond/natural birch, the color scheme and all of the stone is from the early 2000s, but it reads as 1980s. We've since tweaked this some with paint and hardware. This kitchen has a lot of life left in it, but perhaps we will someday do something different.

[Gothichome]

It would appear that there was a sale on black marble tiles at the time all this work was done. To my eye it looks like they were trying to get an early colonial look of a wealthy well to do home with the chinoiserie wall paper and the colonial lamp.
Chinoiserie wall paper was only found in the most expensive of homes In the 1700 and early 1800’s.

[1918ColonialRevival]

The little room off the kitchen was most likely a breakfast area. Some very high end houses of the era had a separate servants' dining area, but the "wall of windows" is typical of a 1920s breakfast room.

As you've stated, by the mid 1920s the era of the live-in maid was on its way out and the maid was more typically a day job. The newest house in our neighborhood that I'm aware of with a live-in maid quarters was built in the summer of 1920. The attic of our house was originally finished as a maid's quarters, though according to the 1920 census, there wasn't a maid living here. The next door neighbors had a maid from Japan in the 1920 census.

[phil]

often the paper was used to hide cracks. also paint didn't stick so well if the plaster hadn't cured a few months. I think that's why they used calcimine, or died the plaster , and perhaps why some walls were covered in paper. Evidently the paint doesn't stick well on fresh plaster. It might be different with modern paint.
mine is 1924 , I think many bungalows like mine were built then for single middle class families, but prior many had larger homes that were shared use. around me there are older houses but not as many , mine was in a little economic boom I think , maybe some of the earlier ones weren't built so well and got mowed down over time. The patterns are a very easy way to add a personal touch. what appeals to one may not to the next person . probably not a big sales feature for a house flipper. I remember rejecting ones because my wife thought he paper was ugly. Of course most of us here would see through that.

I saw an episode of "family guy" that stood out for me. . He was having the boss's wife over and being all snooty she said "gee I dont think I've ever seen a house where you can just walk straight into the living room"

[Lily left the valley]

I'll add my belated welcome to the District.

You and your partner have a lovely home, and I learned quite a bit about eclectics in this thread!

I'm glad you've had some luck with your research so far, and I hope you do get your hands on the plans in the near future. I've had mixed luck in that department, even with a granddaughter of the original family living in the house next door.

I also read about your roof woe threads, and hopefully the second fix takes. From what you wrote it seems the roofers are more than willing to do a third visit if necessary which is fantastic compared to some folks' luck with any given tradesfolk.

Speaking of luck, and back to record finding...I had some when researching our home to find a document recorded on our county's site that mentioned the materials and supplies contract for our home. It was something I wasn't even looking for, it just came up in a search of "unrecorded" subcategory using year and name to search. So if you haven't already done any searches on either your town/city or county's record site (or paper copies if not transferred to electronic data storage yet), poke around a bit beyond the deed pages if they offer them. Although you might not find such a contract for the original build as they owned a supplier of materials, you might find other such documents that give clues to other bits you couldn't find elsewhere.

As to the fireplace masonry cleanup, I've seen all manner of owner frustrations. I think the images you posted in that thread show quite a good effort, given your particular situation. I hope the touch ups of the remaining stubborn bits go smoothly.

I'm going to head over to your recent quandary post, and will respond there because that will ramble on a bit and I have tried to keep this succinct.

[A.Fox]

Rather than a new progress post under Construction Zone, it seems that some people just add to their introduction. Is there any particular preference here?

While we've been stuck at home, we started doing a little investigation in our sunroom.

Here's how the room looked with the previous owner. We didn't even know it had brick walls until we saw the house in person:

27.jpg (319.33 KiB) Viewed 1622 times

26.jpg (294.29 KiB) Viewed 1622 times

I could tell right away that as nice as the fireplace surround was done that it was not an original element of the house. It felt pasted on, and it didn't make sense that the sunroom fireplace outstaged the living room fireplace in it's ornamentation. We also pulled up a corner of the carpet to find the red tile floor mostly intact. That carpet and the drapes were the first to go 2 years ago:

IMG_20180721_062142537.jpg (715.08 KiB) Viewed 1622 times

Last week we got out the paint stripper and did a test patch on the brick walls. The brick is variegated orange and tan in color with a smooth finish and high gloss glaze. The rounded corners around the windows and doorways are a unique touch. It also looks like the whole room once had a cove base, but it's since been mostly covered by the baseboard radiators. The paint came off the bricks easily, but seems for challenging with the thin brown mortar lines. This is definitely a project that we want to take on.

7594138000_IMG_0853.JPG (449.36 KiB) Viewed 1622 times

20200418_173020.jpg (578.64 KiB) Viewed 1622 times

We've been less sure what to do with the fireplace. A while back I stuck a camera down through the opening in the top of the broken pediment and could tell that there was some sort of niche with conduit coming out of it concealed behind the newer overmantle. This week we decided to take it down to see what we find. It turns out there were only 2 eye hooks with screws and 3 finish nails holding it to the wall. And there was the niche:

20200418_113006.jpg (553.38 KiB) Viewed 1622 times

The two flex conduits are coming from the original outlets in the sides of the niche down to new outlets in the face of the mantle. The rear of the niche is brick, investigations around the light switch in the side of the chimney breast and the firebox suggest that the whole chimney breast was finished in face brick. Surprisingly, when we did a test strip, it's a different brick than the rest of the room:

20200418_173033.jpg (1.21 MiB) Viewed 1622 times

It appears to be darker, rougher, and may or may not be glazed. I thought initially that just the niche was done in this accent brick, but looking up at the edge of the firebox. i think the same brick is down there too. The bottom ledge of the niche appears to be unfinished, and there is indication it may have been wood. Based upon all of that, this is my estimate of what the room would have looked like with the original fireplace, and the trim and brick stripped:

Family Room 02.jpg (1.6 MiB) Viewed 1622 times

[A.Fox]

So knowing all of this, we need to make a decision. Do we leave the fireplace more or less as it is, or try a full restoration, or something in between? It appears that before it was covered up, all of the brick was painted. It also appears that the drywall is attached directly to the brick, so we will have an unknown amount of screws and glue to contend with. The granite tiles on the surround are just glued to the drywall, which wraps right into the fiebox, but the granite tiles on the floor appear to be set in a mortar bed on top of the red tile.

Our options could include:

1. Leave the fireplace as it is but paint it a color that harmonizes better with the natural color of the brick. Consider stripping the mantle, which is solid wood, but likely not birch like the rest of the woodwork, and consider changing out the black granite.
2. Remove the pedimented overmantle, but retain the lower mantle and drywall over the niche. Add a apron element to conceal the conduit and a picture molding panel like those on the side of the chimney breast.
3. Retain the lower mantle and restore the niche and outlets. Add a wood frame around the niche to transition back to the drywall.
4. Attempt restoring the whole fireplace. I'm hoping there might be some shadow on the brick that indicates the profile of the niche shelf. Worst case if the brick can't come clean enough, perhaps it can be painted to approximate it's original colors?

What does everyone think here? the current design is very nice, if a bit off-pitch with the real character of the house. The original seems to be very unique, but we don't know if it ever will look as finishes as it did originally. I suppose we could attempt it, and put the drywall back if it looks like a lost cause.

[A.Fox]

20200426_111632.jpg (754.87 KiB) Viewed 1601 times

So we decided to dig in and see what happens. I'll post some more photos once we are done for the day.

20200426_111950.jpg (849.66 KiB) Viewed 1601 times

[Gothichome]

AFox, looks like your committed now. That adhesive might be a bear to get off the walls. My leanings would be to strip it back to those nice glazed bricks, reinstall a mantel and add some nice shelves to the recess.

[A.Fox]

I think we are committed, but not really committed in the sense that if it comes out terrible we can always drywall back over it and reinstall the two mantle segments again. I definitely don’t think the black granite tile was any loss, and it wouldn’t have been at home with the natural earthy tones of the room.

Here’s how far we’ve gotten so far:

DB867463-41A6-46D4-BE8B-FD6F3C915D86.jpeg (914.96 KiB) Viewed 1569 times

It’s hard to see what is There through all of the adhesive, so I updated my rendering based on what I see too:

CB27E815-3EE7-4E04-91FC-01D16A07AB48.jpeg (1.65 MiB) Viewed 1569 times

The soldier detail above and below the niche are interesting. I like how it lines up with the unusual headers over the doors. The protruding soldier course below the picture rail was also unexpected. I’m guessing now that the mantle was a minimal wood shelf. Since it lines up exactly with the living room mantle shelf on the other side of the wall I guessed that the edge profile might have matched.

The adhesive is still soft, so luckily it seems to be scrapping off relatively easy. I’m hoping since it is over the paint, the remaining residue will come off when stripped too. The bigger challenge will be dealing with the damage caused by the screws that were driven into the corners and blew out small craters in the brick. I’m thinking maybe an epoxy faux textured and painted to match the brick might be one solution.