Sears kit homes weathered decades, now quite valuable - SFGATE Or use the SEARCH BOX found below to Ask a Question or Search InspectApedia, Questions & answers or comments about Sears kit homes: sources, history, identification, repair, inspection. A Sears house is: not a steel panel house (those are usually Lustron houses), not every Craftsman, bungalow, or Dutch Colonial style house you come across (though Sears did offer many Craftsman, bungalow, English cottage, Dutch Colonial, and Colonial style houses as did every other house company), not a house built after 1942 (or before 1908), not the only brand of kit house that existed (other companies include Gordon-Van Tine, Aladdin Homes, Bennett Homes, Wardway homes, and others). 10+ American Foursquare Sears Kit House Plans [Part 1] 1. For this week's listing of the week, we decided to find seven charming Sears Catalog homes you can actually buy today. Sears offered these houses from 1908-1940 and there were 370 different designs. I have been pouring over house plans and scouring the internet looking at catalogues and am coming up short. @Sara, we'll look through our references to see what we can add to the Sears kit home notes above for those earlier models and will follow up here. You're welcome to post your photos - one per comment - on that page or on any of the recommended article pages you'll find at the end of that page. New York state is 4th, with 1,679 houses found. Sears Modern Homes were catalog and kit houses sold primarily through mail order by Sears, Roebuck and Co., an American retailer.. From 1908 to 1942, Sears sold more than 70,000 of these houses in North America, by the company's count. All of the house designs of the era of kit homes, were of similar styles Sears, and the other kit companies, were not offering anything unique. What About The Train's Role In All Of This? Sears kit homes contained 30,000 pieces, including 750 pounds of nails, 27 gallons of paint, and a 75-page instruction book. It would be worthwhile to gain visual access to the next rafter or stud bay to the left of that shown in your photo where you may see a kit number or manufacturer's name. @Gail Minthorn, Enthusiasts call the Magnolia the "holy grail of kit houses." (Photo: Courtesy Andrew and Wendy Mutch) This past . Sears Roebuck company began selling buildings or components of buildings in 1895. NTL Stacks: NA8480.N61, Aladdin Homes. Apartment in Munich, Upper Bavaria. This home retains its beautiful o. The milestones, introductions and stories fill volumes. How to Identify a Sears Kit Home: 9 Steps (with Pictures) - wikiHow Here, then, is a list of all of the Sears Modern Homes kit houses that we have found, in the broad area of the city of St. Louis, and St. Louis County (and those two examples in St. Charles County). The family has owned the Sears kit house ever since. AUTHOR:Eric Beechem (no email) Starting in 1916 [? 69 reviews of The Home Depot "4 stars for home depot. The homes were sold through the Sears Roebuck catalog from 1908 to 1940. 8/9. And, like all of the companies, Sears offered homes of many sizes and styles. Easily identified by its hanging bay window on the side (which extends up to the roof line) and its distinctive Castleton dormer with 3 windows. The Anderson, Indiana house is a custom design as are quite a few Sears houses in Anderson, some of which were featured in the Modern Homes catalog in the early 1930s. 239 W. Russell Street, Barrington, $949,000. Over in Sears & Roebucks home state of Illinois, we found this gorgeous Crescent model Sears catalog home up for sale at a tantalizing price. The Homart kits that Sears sold, were available from about 1946-1952 (depending on your source). Kit homes used drywall, asphalt shingles, and "balloon" style. So look instead for those key ID points, hardware, stencil marks, etc. It helps to narrow that search through Sears home catalogs if you can find the year that your home was constructed. They are classic. Included in the overall purchase, were all elements needed for the house, from lumber to roofing; wiring and plumbing; windows and door knobs, and hinges and nails and screws; staircases and all of their parts, pre-mitered; flooring, bath tubs and sinks and faucets; kitchen cabinets and ironing boards; window screens, window shades, and light fixtures. 240 Best Sears kit homes ideas - Pinterest Asking: $484,500 Sears Modern Homes Model: The Glen Falls Year Built: 1928 Listing Agent: Markus Cross Listing Brokerage: Keller Williams Bluegrass. Sears Modern Homes were purchased primarily by customers in East Coast and Midwest states, but have been located as far south as Florida, as far west as . cit. Sears Homes 1908-1914 Please take a look there as that's more thorough than if I'm asked to make up that advice de-novo here. I'll try to post something. NTL Stacks: NA8480.N61, Aladdin Homes. In fact, the Chelsea (a 2,000-square-foot foursquare) came with 840 square yards of wooden lath. But the observation of stencil marks on some framing visible in the interior of the home and research by the owners turned up the original plans for this Aladdin home. Here are five recent sales and listings of Sears homes around Chicagoland. So before you open up yet another Superior Realty, check out these examples, branding tips and our very own name generator. @Amy, The closest I found was in the list of Sears kit homes sold between 1933 and 1942, the Cape Cod (Sears Kit Home Model No. the author of books on identifying Sears houses, cited at REFERENCES below, and While Sears no longer has records of where each of the nearly 75,000. I know New Hamburg well, having spent a lifetime nearby in Poughkeepsie. description of this home at 15 N. Remsen, Wappingers Falls, NY. @Rossman6798, Please call or text 815-603-7338. I would love some insight! For some of these items, there were options (type of wiring, heating, plumbing fixtures, for example, or upgrades for flooring and trim wood), and any masonry items were purchased through Sears, but obtained through a local supplier, rather than being shipped by Sears. It helps to narrow that search through Sears home catalogs if you can find the year that your home was constructed. The following excerpt is from Rosemary Thornton's book cited on this page: In 1915, Sears offered Wood Fiber Wall Board, an early sheetrock-type alternative to lath and plaster. All Locations for Home Improvement & Repair National team, Local service We serve all major metropolitan areas and more, with over 6,800 technicians in the field every day. Ready Built House Company, Portland, Oregon. A Sears catalog home fan website, searshomes.org discusses the plaster systems used in older homes, including Sears kit homes. See full bio. On 2021-12-22 For the first time, Sears has opened the doors to its vast archival collection and invited the public to peek inside. The houses were sold out of the pages of the Sears Roebuck catalog, and the houses in St. Louis were shipped from Cairo, Illinois. Download Our Free E-book. From 1908 until 1940, Sears, Roebuck and Company, then headquartered on the West Side of Chicago, I'm omitting the famous Wilton gingerbread house and Wilton gingerbread house kits sold by Sears as that's a food product not an actual house. Required fields are marked *. For most of its years in operation, the Sears Modern Homes department served its customers from three locations: In Cairo, Illinois, Sears had a 40-acre lumber and millwork plant. 721 Illinois Street, Geneva, IL, 60134 Sold for $390,000. The oiled wood mouldings and built-ins look like they were designed yesterday and probably look even nicer in person. Rosemary Thornton, a recognized expert on Sears kit homes, offers several tips to verify a homes Sears lineage. Not every house in a community of 1920s-era houses, is a Sears house, for example far, far from it, in fact, as only about 2% of houses built in the kit era, were built with kits from Sears. That's because, unfortunately, just finding a house in a catalog that looks like your home does not mean yours is a Sears kit. by Inspectapedia Com Moderator. I'd like to be able to answer your question but as there were over 100 kit home models made over quite a few decades, with just your description I cannot. Sears recommended that wood molding be installed over the joints for superior results. Homes offers a wide variety of energy efficient homes ranging in size from 950 to over 2300 square feet with prices starting as low as fifty dollars per square foot depending on style & size. The best place to start would be see For nearly 100 years the home has been meticulously cared for and features hardwood flooring, enclosed front porch, and renovated kitchen. . One of the most fascinating parts of the story, is that the framing lumber was (in most cases) pre-cut and labeled, allowing the homebuilder to follow an instruction booklet to help in the organized construction process. Price: $239,000 Converse Heights: Built in 1925, this three-bedroom, Arts and Craftsstyle home shines. Tell us about you so we know what to send. New York ranks fourth on the list with 1,679. Outdoors, a large deck in the backyard offers an ideal spot for warm-weather entertaining. The elegant archways and what looks like the coziest home office south of the Mason Dixon gave us an excuse to linger and wonder if running the site from Lexington, Kentucky would make sense, Asking: $1,150,000 Sears Modern Homes Model: Oakdale Year Built: 1923 Listing Agent: John McElveen Listing Brokerage: RE/MAX of Boulder. Because the homes were so easy to tailor to their owners tastes, true Sears Modern Homes can be tricky to identify today. Sears is estimated to have sold about 70,000 of their home building kits from 1908-1940 and it's currently estimated that about 70% of the original Sears homes built from kits are still standing today. There . All Locations for Home Improvement & Repair - Sears Home Services I'll be interested if you find any indication of just how widely plaster-lath construction was used in kit homes; our rock-lath article cited above gives some history, though not specific to kit homes; we need authoritative sources on the extent to which rock-lath or sheet-plaster systems were in wide use in North America before the 1940s. Vintage Mail Order Houses That Came from Sears Catalogs, 1910s-1940s The Aladdin Company, Bay City, Michigan. I own a home in Prattville, AL that Ive been told by surrounding neighbors was purchased from Sears and Roebuck. Well, what did you think of our picks of the best Sears Catalog Homes on the market? A 1952 kit home could have been a Sears Roebuck product, though that construction year is a decade past the Sears Modern kit home series. Americans anywhere could flip through the four-pound, 1,400-page . We believe it might be a Sears Elsemore model, as it has the exact same floor plan, including the "reception room" in the front entrance, which was apparently unique to that model. Get actionable real estate strategy in your inbox. They are always welcome. In some inspections you will find a few rafters or beams which show, Framing marks on other kit house brands and their framing lumber are discussed below at, Labels may be present on the back of millwork (baseboard, window, door trim, staircase) as Sears used a common supplier, "Sears, Roebuck and Company," or "925 Homan Ave. Chicago" may be present on shipping labels. Look for additional clues besides lumber stamping, such as hardware, windows, etc. Nor do I include the collection of homes in Wood River, Illinois (both towns had neighborhoods of Sears Modern Homes kits built by the Standard Oil Company, around 1918). by InspectApedia (mod). Sears Houses In the U.S. Researching Historic Kit and Plan Book Homes, 2) Unless you can recognize the many models offered in the Sears Modern Homes catalogs, houses built from kits are indistinguishable from those built through the standard process using a construction company. You will not receive a notification when a response to your question has been posted. There we list the manufacturers of kit or catalog homes sold in the United States and provide links to additional references, kit home identification, kit or catalog home restoration and repairs, and kit home architectural and hardware details, markings, and stencils. In Detroit, The Ford Model T, the first car built using Henry Fords revolutionary assembly line, sputtered into life and changed the world. Oddly, there is no sales blurb included in the Sears Modern Homes catalog for this one. NTL Stacks TH4819.P7H27 1918, Ready Built buildings. They included location specifics and many photos. Our client traced the sale and construction of the home to WHEN AND WHERE WERE SEARS CATALOG HOUSES BUILT? NTL FOLIO TH4819.P7S435 1920, A Plan Book of Harris Homes. The backyard is great for entertaining, and the Florida climate allows for the space to be . 1924. Sears homes can be found across the continental United States. catalog homes in Dutchess County, NY. The thickness dimensions do not include field-applied top coat layers of finished plaster. We may have a kit house, pic from the 30's, abandoned for 35 years, have more pics if needed What do you think so far? If you read about a product or service on this website, its because we genuinely think its great. In addition to trying the Sears Kit Home catalogs and identification resources we give here, you're welcome to post photos (one per comment - as many comments and thus photos as you need) of your home and to give what background you can about it (location, history etc) to see if other interested readers can offer suggestions. This photo is of an Aladdin kit home constructed in Tivoli, New York. @Em H, I am licensed in just Missouri and Kansas, however, I have a great network of agents with a few good ones in eastern Tennessee. You will see that a stencil marking on lumber or sheathing or even specific bits of hardware can identify the home even if its general layout and plan are similar to those produced by more than one manufacturer. I'm in search of the floor plan that goes with this old house that we believe is an old Sears Kit house. After which it was relocated to Aurora, IL. If My House Is Not A Kit, Where Did It Come From? Sears Is Crumbling, but These 9 Sears Catalog Homes Stand Tall I am about to sell and would love any help in finding out more to pass on to the next buyer. Between 1908 and 1940, Sears provided house kits. Let our vast experience and top picks guide your decision. Sears Catalog Homes - Then & Now | The Michels Group Love these homes. we own a sears home..We are interested in saleing..it and land surrounding it its in the beautiful mountains of eastern Tennessee. sears osborn, sears wilmore, sears jewel, sears jewell, sears hillsboro, sears houses in Pennsylvania, Sears houses in Pittsburgh, national database of sears houses, sears houses in the u.s., sears house seeker, 5242 towers terrace, 1213 fairmont avenue, 118 poplar street, sears modern homes, sears home construction division, sears house catalogs, antiquehome.org, kit houses, mail order houses . which are definitely not Sears Catalog Houses are included in this list as a fun exercise for readers. Six Sears Houses - New England Historical Society Please refrain from any comments or jokes about anything else. Sears Goodwall was touted as more fire-resistant than alternative plant-based fiberboard sheathing products. More than 100 years of history now available online.Sears has a rich, long history to tell dating back to 1886 when Richard Sears sold the first batch of watches.