Tuesday, July 18, 2006

More on kit houses

Aladdin Homes archive shows a house with a foundation like ours, even down to the textured blocks. Here is another house with textured blocks on the foundation.

I found out something else today that is really interesting for a number of reasons. It was not until the 1896 with the Rural Free Delivery Act that mail was widely available. This act changed the face of rural America by providing mail order to parts of the country that had relied on cross-roads store to provide all of their "store-bought" items. Sears and other mail order catalogs changed this. No longer did a rural customer have to depend on what was available in their local area, accessible only by horseback. Now they could have items shipped in via US Mail from all over the country.

At least one forum exists where people discuss issues related to kit homes.

At some point, I am going to walk around Conway and take pictures of the houses I suspect of being kit homes and see if I can id them. Maybe I should write an article... (at least for the Historical Society).

Kitchen

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Kitchen

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Dining Room

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Master BR "closet"

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Master BR

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W's Room

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Living Room

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Thursday, July 13, 2006

House update

We are really closing on the house tomorrow. We were supposed to close on Wednesday, but the termite inspection did not get done. None of the termite companies could inspect until all the garbage was pulled out from underneath the house. The seller wanted us to take $500 and ignore the garbage and sign off on the house without knowing whether or not the house had termites! Sometimes I wonder just how stupid people think I am?

Todd is hopeful that we can get the house ready to move into by the first of August. That would be really lovely. We really need to be moved by the 14th of August, as that is when Todd reports for school. On the 21st, I have to be available for meetings, and whatever else comes up. We really need to have almost all of our stuff out of here by then. Possibly just some stuff here to prop the place and possibly not.

Anyway, by then, we need to have the floor joists fixed, the foundation repaired, the sub-floor in the laundry room replaced, and the roof joists replaced. And the inside needs to be painted and the floors refinished. No pressure, right?

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

I work with cool people...

One of my bosses and director of the Honors College, Donna Bowman got some press this week. Here review of Carolyn Parkhurst's Lost and Found from the Onion is cited in The Week. (Thanks to Sara_M from the online Forum).

We are wondering if the house we are buying might have been a kit home of the type sold by Sears and others. So I wasted the afternoon looking at online pictures of kit houses. Well, that and looking for my 2004 W-2 forms for the bank...

Clarke Historical Library hosts a huge online exhibit on Aladdin Homes. Aladdin, along with Sears, were two of the largest kit home manufacturers.

Several sites, including Old House Web and River Valley Home and Garden offer information on existing kit houses.

Monday, July 03, 2006

Holiday

We went to Todd's family Independence day reunion. Really we had a lovely time. I spent a lot of time in the pool with my Olivia, and even more time sitting in a chair near the pool watching all the kids. Meanwhile, Todd was off with the men discussing E85 and what it means to the southeastern Missouri economy. I am so jealous.

Now we are at my parents' house. Since 10am Saturday morning, I have spent 15 hours on the road. I am so looking forward to not getting into a car tomorrow.

Sunday, July 02, 2006

The Big Flower

On Tuesday, for no apparent reason, Olivia decided that she wanted to get me a flower. Todd offered to take her outside so she could pick me a flower to bring to me at work. But no, she said she wanted to get mommy a "big flower." So Todd, the sweetie that he is, told her that he would take her to buy me a flower. Then he proceeded to use that all day to get her to behave. She needed her bangs cut, so he got her to stand still by telling her that they couldn't leave to get mommy her big flower until she got her bangs cut. And she need to take some fever medicine (not motrin, which she likes), so again, Todd talked her into it with the promise of going to buy me a flower. So he took her to The Daisy Shoppe and she picked up that beautiful flower.

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