Now dated 1830s Stone House: Architectural Historians
Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2015 6:10 pm
I just had a visit from an architectural historian this past Friday, and she is now putting the first floor of my house in the early 19th century, around 1830s. Time to start my renovation/decoration research all over again, haha.
I had the same historian out right after purchasing the house, before I started removing the layers of renovations, and so her original estimate was based mostly on the upstairs, where more of the older features happened to be visible. She took one look at the window moldings and lath I found under the paneling downstairs and felt very confident about early 19th century. Some new information supports her--- the daughter of the PO had told me that the house was around 200 years old, but had suffered some kind of fire. She had also mentioned that she thought it was originally 1.5 stories, similar to an old stone house down the road. With the help of the architectural historian we were able to find evidence of the 1.5 stories (odd placement of windows relative to stairs, patched stonework, chimney curvature etc.). She still dates the upstairs as 1870s, so it seems like one possibility is that the fire was in the upstairs of the house, which was then rebuilt as a full 2 stories.
We also could trace the old floor plan downstairs. Very interesting. Based on the wood floor joints and gaps in the plaster on the outer interior stone walls, the original floor plan matched very exactly the Germanic floor plan that architectural historian had guessed during her original visit (a bonus point for her!). A wall had been removed just to the left, coming in the original front door. This would have divided the very small "formal" foyer from a parlor, and then a small bedroom (presumably) from the kitchen. Interesting to note, is that the the entire first floor is wide heart pine except the exact area where the missing wall would create a very small foyer; this area is a very narrow-cut heart pine. The narrow pine boards would have been more expensive and more impressive, which makes sense for a first impression entering the house. A detail I had not noticed at all (probably because my floors are covered in black adhesive, haha).
So now I have an 1830s downstairs, 1870s upstairs, and 1950s addition to contend with. Of course if 1830s is accurate, I have some new street cred with the big civil war crowd in my area For those who are interested, the architectural historian charges $80 for an hour of on-site consultation (and much more to do archival research). I was very skeptical of paying that much, but I learned so many small details about everything from nail types to floor plans that it was very worth it.
Also, throwing in a photo of my soon-to-be new-very old floors Did a test sanding, and they are beautiful!!! Also incredibly thick, which is great.
I had the same historian out right after purchasing the house, before I started removing the layers of renovations, and so her original estimate was based mostly on the upstairs, where more of the older features happened to be visible. She took one look at the window moldings and lath I found under the paneling downstairs and felt very confident about early 19th century. Some new information supports her--- the daughter of the PO had told me that the house was around 200 years old, but had suffered some kind of fire. She had also mentioned that she thought it was originally 1.5 stories, similar to an old stone house down the road. With the help of the architectural historian we were able to find evidence of the 1.5 stories (odd placement of windows relative to stairs, patched stonework, chimney curvature etc.). She still dates the upstairs as 1870s, so it seems like one possibility is that the fire was in the upstairs of the house, which was then rebuilt as a full 2 stories.
We also could trace the old floor plan downstairs. Very interesting. Based on the wood floor joints and gaps in the plaster on the outer interior stone walls, the original floor plan matched very exactly the Germanic floor plan that architectural historian had guessed during her original visit (a bonus point for her!). A wall had been removed just to the left, coming in the original front door. This would have divided the very small "formal" foyer from a parlor, and then a small bedroom (presumably) from the kitchen. Interesting to note, is that the the entire first floor is wide heart pine except the exact area where the missing wall would create a very small foyer; this area is a very narrow-cut heart pine. The narrow pine boards would have been more expensive and more impressive, which makes sense for a first impression entering the house. A detail I had not noticed at all (probably because my floors are covered in black adhesive, haha).
So now I have an 1830s downstairs, 1870s upstairs, and 1950s addition to contend with. Of course if 1830s is accurate, I have some new street cred with the big civil war crowd in my area For those who are interested, the architectural historian charges $80 for an hour of on-site consultation (and much more to do archival research). I was very skeptical of paying that much, but I learned so many small details about everything from nail types to floor plans that it was very worth it.
Also, throwing in a photo of my soon-to-be new-very old floors Did a test sanding, and they are beautiful!!! Also incredibly thick, which is great.