The Historic District

But then you would need to keep a return pad inside just for safety

phil wrote:But then you would need to keep a return pad inside just for safety

I'm more likely to install the giant 19th century knife switch I bought recently to disable all internet/cell.

I was outside at the perfect time yesterday and got some really good pictures of the other side of my house:









You can see what a mess is going on with this nonfunctional 2nd chimney (for an older but now nonexistent furnace) and the mudroom door. The mudroom/2nd bathroom/pantry is a real puzzle...it's going to take me some time to figure out how to make this part of the house make sense. It's also very unusual to have no windows on a whole wall like this (often they have some tiny ones), and I wonder what I'll find when I take the aluminum siding off.

Does the wider bottom part of the chimney indicate there was also a fireplace?

No windows on an entire side is unusual. Sometimes you see that on the northern side of a house (more often there are fewer windows rather than a complete absence of them) but, according to your photo, this is the east or west side, either of which would help with passive solar heating in winter, were there windows present to do that.

I'm going to stay tuned to see what lurks under the siding!

Wow - stunning photos, Oaktree .... may I ask what kind of camera. Although I know full well that photographer skill and having good eye accounts for most of it!

Kashka-Kat wrote:Wow - stunning photos, Oaktree .... may I ask what kind of camera. Although I know full well that photographer skill and having good eye accounts for most of it!

It's a pixel phone...it has a surprisingly good camera for a phone! Thank you!!!

Manalto wrote:Does the wider bottom part of the chimney indicate there was also a fireplace?
...

I'm going to stay tuned to see what lurks under the siding!

The fireplace was bricked over for a gas stove...I don't know what's left if anything behind the brick, and it's another later project. There's still a cool old ash door on the outside of the chimney.

I will say one thing I've learned is unusual doesn't mean never done. The Bungalow has been all kinds of "thats not how it should be", including the single window on one side of the fireplace without a matching one on the other side-and since it's brick it really was built that way. I'm interested to see if your house is like that-for some reason someone didn't want windows there when they built it...or someone has buried them under drywall and siding...

eclecticcottage wrote:I will say one thing I've learned is unusual doesn't mean never done. The Bungalow has been all kinds of "thats not how it should be", including the single window on one side of the fireplace without a matching one on the other side-and since it's brick it really was built that way. I'm interested to see if your house is like that-for some reason someone didn't want windows there when they built it...or someone has buried them under drywall and siding...

I have wondered when looking at your pictures if they just hated the typical symmetry, and had a floor to ceiling cabinet on that side.

eclecticcottage and lily...regarding the unusual wall with no windows, the interior wall seems to be floated in about 6". This weirdness only exists on this wall. I know this because the wood flooring (around 1910/20s) extends underneath the drywall. I have seen houses of this age with cupboards around the fireplace (and I might do that eventually), but the flooring is a weird clue! I think I will learn a lot once I'm ready to remove the aluminum siding and restore the fireplace.