A Brief History Lesson

One of my good friends from college (well, I went to school with her husband) came over tonight at our invitation to take a look at the house and give us any insights into its history. J. is getting a masters degree in architecture, and we were hoping that she could both tell us a little about the house and brainstorm about some of the things we can do to make good use of our spaces.

J. was pretty excited about the house, but wanted to see the basement first. Now our basement is pretty weird. The front half of it is concrete block–something extremely unusual for an old home. Architect pointed out that the concrete blocks (half-thickness) aren’t actually load-bearing, but instead, they sit in front of the foundation, and the block wall that divides the basement in two has no supports whatsoever. She noted that a good swift kick could probably knock half of the wall over. So the basement is actually encased in concrete block as opposed to “made of concrete block.” This is good news as far as I’m concerned, because I want to rip the block out at some point anyway (although it’s pretty darned low on the priority list at the moment).

Next, she pointed out that our house, while a brick house on the outside, is not entirely brick, but it’s actually a frame house with brick facing.

Oh, and our radiators, which are hot water (as opposed to the typical steam heat), are not original, but were likely installed in the 30’s or 40’s. Radiators from our house’s era (it was built in 1912) were ornate and decorative since they were out in the open. These radiators are plain and were always meant to have radiator covers on them.

Leave a Reply