Common Yellow Throat

Happy Summer

Yesterday was the first day of summer...yea! I spent the morning walking at Kensington Metropark and what a wonderful morning it was. I have lots of great photos to edit and post.
I have been posting about my house and in some ways my house gets in the way of life. I have spent the last 6 weeks cleaning and doing yard work as the wonderful world of nature passed me by. I have to live what is left of my life getting out and doing what I love. Although I want a clean house is it really worth giving up the wonderful month of May? Please remind me of that in October...my fav month of the year...where again I will want to clean, do yard work and get ready for Winter. OK, so tap me on the shoulder and tell me "Carol, get out and walk.....get out and chat up all the little creatures, plants and flowers"
I take medication that keeps me going, I have had my carotid done and a stent put in to unblock an artery in my heart....if I hadn't had all this done I would probably be dead by now. So.......keep reminding me to enjoy my life, worry less and stop eating at McDonald's  ;-)

Inside my Sears Honor Bilt Home

 When I pulled up a corner of my living room carpet and saw beautiful hardwood I decide then, that I would make my Sears home look like my grandparents home. They had a 4x4 (4 up 4 down) that was built in the late 1920s and all the woodwork and floors (yes, hardwood was the thing back then) were stained a dark mahogany. I could see that at one time my woodwork and floors were also stained the same. I had the floors refinished and then my son changed out my switches to push button. I decorated and furnished my house in a traditional fashion that would be timeless. Previous owners had updated the kitchen and bathroom in an absolutely hideous and cheap fashion. I had the kitchen gutted and got rid of the awful drop ceiling. I never did get around to the bathroom other than a new vanity and have learned to live with it.
I love my house and you could say that it is my hobby and I enjoy making little decorating changes seasonally. My favorite is when I go all out for autumn and for Christmas. It looks beautiful.

Shooting from the living room into the dining room...note walk-out bay window and hardwood floors.

See floor plan below.

This switch plate was bought from an ad in a decorating magazine and when I ordered it, I found out that the company was in Southgate (at that time). The owner told me that this was a replica of a switch plate from his grandparents old Victorian home in Wyandotte.

6 over 1 wood windows (restored)

Phone niche.....my son discovered a phone jack (well not a jack exactly) that he could hard wire my phone into. The phone is actually a push button candlestick phone that I got from QVC

My Sears Built House ..the front porch.

I love, love, love my front porch. It makes me so sad in the fall when everything gets put away for the winter. I love sitting out in the summer and watching my little world go by. About 10 years ago, my neighbor, Clara, gave me her old glider when she moved (she has since passed away). I try to make the porch homey and keep it clean so that it is like another room of my house. I love taking afternoon naps on that glider! I read, listen to the ballgame, knit and crochet and just enjoy being outside. No outdoor patio or deck can compare.
I often think that our world is so stressful and filled with strife and conflict and that living back in those days would be a simpler life....but would it? The great depression and WW1 were just on the horizon. Not something that I would want to live through....plus I would have to give up my smart phone ;-)

My grandparents in Hubbard, Ohio had a great front porch....wish I had a photograph although it is all a very clear picture in my mind's eye. The porch floor was wood and always painted gray. They had a wonderful glider and a few of those old metal chairs that had been repainted so many times I can't remember what color they were. The house sat close to the sidewalk and neighbors always stopped to chat. My Grandmother would sit out on the porch with her usual summer project...making oval rag rugs. I always loved to pick out in the rug one of my Mom's or my old dresses. Everything in those days got re-purposed. That porch, in the summer, was the epicenter of the house. I would spend many an afternoon sewing doll clothes or...imagine...playing my clarinet on the porch.

Check back next time when you will see the inside of my Sears Kit home.

...in the old days

  Lincoln Park became a village in 1921 and than a city in 1925 and 6 years later my house was built. Pagel Ave. was a dirt road and there was only one other house on the street beside mine. My imagination invisions my house with a dirt or gravel driveway or one of those drives with 2 stripes and grass down the middle. No garage of course and I wonder if they even had a car. Very little traffic on my street...maybe a horse and wagon and a car like the ones pictured above.
After the war all those returning military needed housing so subdivisions were built around my little house....1950, I believe. My beautiful walk-out bay window in my dining room that once overlooked an apple orchard, now looks out at my neighbors driveway and side door. My house is hemmed in.

So I can't help wondering what it looked like sitting on the front porch and looking up and down the dirt street. Did they have parties, did they mow their grass with a push mower, did they have a glider on their front porch with canvas awnings around the porch?  I wish that I could contact the descendants of the original owners.. I do know that the lady of the house donated a glass dish to the Lincoln Park Historic Museum......I will start my investigation there.

thank you Lincoln Park for the pictures that I borrowed from your website.

My Sears Built House

 Sears Honor Bilt Home

Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge

This is the ad that appeared in the Sears catalog in 1931

Low monthly payments of $30 to $45

When I bought my house in 1995 I had no idea that it was a Sear kit home. My neighbor told me all about it and I was so intrigued that I called Sears Archives in Chicago. I talked to a very nice woman who told me that the ad for my house first ran in the 1931 catalog even though the city records show that the house was built in 1927. I'm only guessing here, but I think that they got the permit to build in 1927 but due to the "great depression" decided to wait until the economy was more stable and they were ready to risk building. She then sent me a packet of information including the above ad.
When my brother was enlarging my fireplace mantle there was newspaper lining the backing and it was the Detroit Free Press from 1937.
As I understand it....and I may not be totally accurate, but everything came it a kit to build your house. You just had to put in a foundation or basement and then hire a contractor to build it. Everything was included...the framing, roofing, brick or siding, windows, electrical, plumbing, fixtures, doors and so on. The framing was all numbered and I have been told that is how to determine that your house is a Sears home by looking for numbers on the wood. I, however have never found any. It must have been like one gigantic puzzle. I would love to have seen the instruction book for that!
My house is identical to the photo only my house is brick. As far as the plan itself, two things are different. The door from the dining room into the kitchen is at the other end of the same wall and in the bathroom the tub and linen closet are switched around.
There are several unique features that date the house to the early 30's including a lovely phone niche. The front and side doors are the original and look like the picture in the ad. The window are 6 over 1 and I had them restored about 14 years ago.  In a day or so, I will add more to this and include photos of my house as it is today.

Happy Birthday to my little Chickadee

Happy 15th birthday to my grand daughter, Emma