Offering so many choices worked: In 1930 Sears proclaimed itself the “World’s Largest Home Builders.”įrom the 1934 catalog $1,631 in 1934 would be $32,000 today. Homebuyers could even design their own house and submit the blueprints to Sears, which would then pre-cut, fit, and ship the custom kit. In 1911 Sears began financing its kit houses.įrom the 1921 catalog $989 in 1921 would be $15,000 today. In 1910 Sears added gas and electric light fixtures to its kits. Ward Jandl wrote in Houses by Mail: “Sears attempted to make ordering a home as easy as ordering an automobile, radio or piece of furniture.”įrom the 1908 Sears catalog $2,500 in 1908 would be $73,000 today. Sears, Roebuck entered the kit-house market in 1908 and soon became the dominant dealer. The brothers William and Otto Sovereign founded the company in a lumber town in Michigan, and the company was proud of the quality of its lumber, offering to pay homebuyers $1 for each knot they found in their kit house.Īn Aladdin ad in the Star-Telegram in 1919 $1,053 to $1,797 would be $16,000 to $27,000 today. Aladdin sold the first kit houses in 1906. The Aladdin Company was not the biggest kit-house maker, but it was the first-and the last. Also the kit-house maker usually sold the heating, electrical, and plumbing systems separately. In most cases kit houses did not include bricks, cement, or plaster for lathing. Some kit houses were designed to be built over an excavation for a basement that contained laundry facilities, a furnace, and space for fuel storage, fruit and vegetable storage, and recreation. Walls could be upgraded from paint to paper. Some kit houses included a wall safe or a built-in ironing board.
#Sweet home 3d walk in closet windows
A kit included all framing and sheathing and trim lumber, all roofing components, gutters and downspouts, windows and sash weights, stairs and railings, lath for plaster walls, cabinets, counters, closets, exterior and interior doors and hardware, even nails.Īnd paint-enough for two coats inside and out. Kit houses were not mere shell houses with four exterior walls and a roof to keep the homeowners dry until they saved up to buy the materials to finish out the house.Ī kit house was double walled and double floored.
The buyer received not only the building materials but also blueprints and printed instructions. The buyer paid the balance owed upon receipt and had the kit hauled to a building site. The materials to build the house were precut to fit in a factory, numbered, bundled, and shipped in sealed boxcars to a freight station near the buyer.
Homebuyers mailed in an order with a down payment.
#Sweet home 3d walk in closet free
Several companies made kit houses, but their operation was basically the same: The company distributed a free catalog showing exterior views and floorplans of kit houses. Kit houses carried the concept of planbook houses to its natural conclusion, providing not only the plans but also the building materials to assemble a house from the basement up. Two of the largest sellers were mail-order giants Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward.īut some kit houses were made right here in Fort Worth by a local lumber company. And a century later tens of thousands survive.Īs the term mail-order suggests, homebuyers ordered their kit house from a mail-order catalog.
Kit houses-also called “mail-order houses” or “ready-cut houses”-were popular for at least thirty years early in the twentieth century. I've just now fixed it.Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like kit.Īnd after you know the story of kit houses, you see them-or think you see them-everywhere: in Fairmount, on the North Side, in Arlington Heights. And I just noticed that one of the doors is shorter than the others. I removed the fireplace from this bedroom and rearranged the furnishings. I've moved some of the walls, enlarged the walk-in closet, shortened the bathroom (by removing the shower stall and rearranging the furnishings therein), and moved the bathroom door so it is now in the Master Bedroom. In doing so, what had been the Main Bathroom has now become an en suite Master Bathroom that picture is coming up. I've made this bedroom smaller, took out one of the closets, moved the remaining closets, and added an en suite bathroom the door is visible in the bedroom picture. Here's the biggest change that I've made. I just noticed that one wall being out of alignment as I post this picture I have just now fixed it. I've made a few cosmetic changes, as well as a few more substantial ones. I had a few ideas on this house, and saved a new file of it to implement them.
0 kommentar(er)
