And you thought IKEA was difficult! North Dakota man restores his grandparents' 1916 flat-pack home ordered from Sears catalog to mark its 100th anniversary
- More than 70,000 Sears Catalog Homes sold between 1908 and 1940 - bought straight out of a mail-order booklet
- Sears offered hundreds of different designs which would all come pre-cut and ready to assemble by families
- A Reddit user decided to restore his great-grandparents Catalog home to its former glory on its 100th anniversary
Next
time you're wrestling with your IKEA coffee table assembly, spare a
thought for those Sears customers whose entire home came in flat-pack
form.
More
than 70,000 Sears Catalog Homes were sold between 1908 and 1940 -
bought straight out of a mail-order booklet and assembled by the
customer.
There
were hundreds of designs, from the tiny Goldenrod - a simple,
three-room and no-bathroom cottage for summer vacationers, to the
stately four-bedroom Magnolia, the properties came pre-cut and ready to
assemble. Today many are still standing, primarily located in the East
Coast and Midwest although homes have been found as far as Florida,
California and Alaska.
One
such home was built in North Dakota. That house belonged to the
great-grandparents of Reddit user RedHotSauceBoss, RHSB, who decided to
restore the property to its former glory on its 100th birthday.
A Reddit user decided to restore his great-grandparents Catalog home to its former glory on its 100th anniversary
More than 70,000 Sears Catalog Homes
were sold between 1908 and 1940 - bought straight out of a mail-order
booklet and assembled by the customer
RHSB
explained on his post that his relatives had been granted 120 acres of
land in the state for free under the Homestead Act, a 19th century law
that granted land to people who proved they could take care of it.
The
family then picked out a home from the catalog - which may be a Model
No. 137, which sold for about $1,200 - the equivalent of $27,000 today.
Like
the majority of Sears mail-order homes, the materials arrived into town
by train and was taken to the land by horse-drawn wagons.
The home was then erected by the family, friends and neighbors.
There were hundreds of designs, from
the tiny Goldenrod - a simple, three-room and no-bathroom cottage for
summer vacationers, to the stately four-bedroom Magnolia, the properties
came pre-cut and ready to assemble
Today many are still standing,
primarily located in the East Coast and Midwest although homes have been
found as far as Florida, California and Alaska
The majority of Sears mail-order homes arrived into town by train and were taken to the land by horse-drawn wagons
Sears stopped issuing its Modern Homes catalog after 1940 but many of the houses remain to this day
'In
1916 my great-grandfather built his house from a Sears home kit. 100
years later we've restored it to its original beauty,' wrote RHSB who
said he has installed exterior weatherproofing, storm windows, and a
new roof.
He
is now working on the interior which he plans to fill with pictures and
memories 'so it can be a place where future generations of our family
can learn not only about our genealogy, but our history.'
Sears
stopped issuing its Modern Homes catalog after 1940 but many of the
houses remain to this day. Sears house enthusiast Andrew Mutch believes
as much as 70 per cent of the more than 70,000 sold have survived thanks
to their durable materials.
However,
all the sales records at Sears were destroyed during a corporate house
cleaning so it is difficult to give an exact figure.
The
Sears houses also offered what was then the latest in home technology,
such as central heating, indoor plumbing, and electricity.
The largest and most expensive Sears model was the Magnolia - seven of which are still standing.
One
of the biggest concentrations of catalog homes is in Carlinville,
Illinois where Standard Oil Company bulk bought in 1918 to house its
mineworkers at a total cost of approximately US $1 million.
Sales
peaked in 1929 when the least expensive model was under US $1,000 while
the most expensive was under US $4,400 ($13,687 and $60,225 in 2013
dollars respectively).
The
houses, which included eight different models, took nine months to
build and were completed in 1919. The order led to Sears naming one of
their models after Carlin.
Other
notable properties include the cemetery office at Greenlawn Cemetery,
in the Newport News, Virginia, which was a 1936 Sears Catalog Home.
Sears house enthusiast Andrew Mutch
believes as much as 70 per cent of the more than 70,000 sold have
survived thanks to their durable materials
The Sears houses also offered what was
then the latest in home technology, such as central heating, indoor
plumbing, and electricity
One of the biggest concentrations of
catalog homes is in Carlinville, Illinois where Standard Oil Company
bulk bought in 1918 to house its mineworkers at a total cost of
approximately US $1 million (not pictured)
Sales peaked in 1929 when the least
expensive model was under US $1,000 while the most expensive was under
US $4,400 ($13,687 and $60,225 in 2013 dollars respectively)
The houses, which included eight
different models, took nine months to build and were completed in 1919.
The order led to Sears naming one of their models after Carlin
The largest and most expensive Sears model was the Magnolia - seven of which are still standing (not pictured)
The homes have become popular with Sears Catalog spotters traveling to view the unique properties
No comments:
Post a Comment