I wonder if some relatives can help me figure this out. I just discovered on this horribly fuzzy photo I took that the brick is different around the kitchen window (the double window at bottom right). It almost looks like a former bay window to me. Any clues? Notice how it arches a couple feet above the double window, then continues a few inches straight down along the sides, then straight down a couple more feet below the window.
Deciphering the changes in the house through the different brick patterns has been interesting. We know the front of the house was added on in 1929 (did I get that right?), which is evident in the picture. The brick at the front of the house (to the left of the PVC vent stack) is lighter. The mudroom/former laundry area to the right (mostly obscured by the tree and out of the picture) is also an addition. But on both sides of the house, about midway up the upstairs windows, the brick changes again. I wonder if the original house was single-story. And what's with the several courses of brick that are darker on the left of this picture between the windows? It's all very interesting.
I only took this picture because I was so proud of the work Dick and my dad did to tear out all the plants growing up the side of the house. Really only the gable was visible until they came in with the chainsaw, loader tractor and miscellaneous tools.
Unfortunately the removal of the incredibly tough grapevine revealed some brick damage we hadn't known about. At the bottom right you can see a couple spots that look like white bricks, which are just patches. The foundation of the mudroom/former laundry addition has heaved from frost and that's evident in the brick in two spots. Par for the course with an old house!
Mystery #1 solved: See the brick "eyebrows," the arches above the windows in the small photo at left? They're gone now. Thanks for the pic, Maggie!
4 comments:
Sue,
I am sending you a pre-1929 picture of the house by email that should give you some clues on the different shades of brick and the patterns you see above windows. The original house was two story, but looked very different from the current house.
Maggie
Here's a crazy thought, but could it just be that they had the brick delivered in two loads and the second load was a slightly different color? They didn't have the same quality control standards as we do today so it's totally possible that the pigment in the second "batch" didn't match.
Beth, your favorite speculator
We just had a window replaced with something double the width. The first thing they had to do was remove the old header and make a new one. Our house is stick built, but with brick you have some more challenges. The triangular patter above that double window, if you look closely, leaves enough brick below each course for the weight of those above to transfer down and around the opening created for the newer, wider window. Once the new window was in place, the brick could be put back in. Today, that could be done without destroying the old brick thanks to cutoff saws and diamond blades to remove the mortar. In the old days, hammer and chisel and lots of broken bricks!
It's really neat that you guys have a living piece of history to live in!
Hi this is Donna Carpenter, I am the oldest grand-child of Bessie and John Battel. Part of the brick was taken off the house when I was a child in order to get some "Bees" out. Grandma Battel was very alergic to bee stings, and the bees had gotten into the walls of the house. I can remember the family stayed someplace else, while the work was going on. And I sort of remember going out there and seeing some people working. I can also remember Grandma Battel telling about the man building the wall of cupboards in the kitchen and her telling how see told him she wanted the "whole wall" for storage.
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