How old do you think this home is?

[GioTheGreek]

Greetings,

A couple of weeks back I was driving around a few old roads, when I came across this strange little building.

How old do you think it is?

And this house looks like it would have potential. There is a great big field out front... and it is abandoned. I just need to get permission lol

It looks quie old as well don't you think?

I cannot wait for all of that white stuff to melt. I need some vitamin "MD".

 

[Frankn]

Gio, Next time you do this use a better camera. The resolution leaves a lot to be desired. and the snow covers a lot of telling details. Both late 1800-to-early 1900,Hay, there's not much to go by.
First ,they are near the road which means the road came first.
The first, appears to have modern mortar bonding the round objects together" remember the missing resolution". The edge of the roof is rusting which means metal roof or spouting.
The second is a strange design, the siding is narrow, The windows have small panes.
If I had 3 views, no snow coverage and better resolution I could do better.

 

[GioTheGreek]

Frank, apologies. I just remembered I had lowered the resolution on my phone's camera in order to save space.

Next time I'll get it right. lol

thx again

 

[Eric Willoughby]

Gio, Next time you do this use a better camera. The resolution leaves a lot to be desired. and the snow covers a lot of telling details. Both late 1800-to-early 1900,Hay, there's not much to go by.
First ,they are near the road which means the road came first.
The first, appears to have modern mortar bonding the round objects together" remember the missing resolution". The edge of the roof is rusting which means metal roof or spouting.
The second is a strange design, the siding is narrow, The windows have small panes.
If I had 3 views, no snow coverage and better resolution I could do better.

Frank, you remind me of Walter.

 

[Frankn]

Eric, who is Walter? It was just constructive criticism and unlike you, he took it the right way.

 

[Rick (Nova Scotia)]

Hey Gio,

The first one is if I'm seeing it right is what they call a "stack wall" some kind of a fad I'd guess you'd call it, and probably not too old. That doesn't mean a thing, the ground it's built on could have been used before.

 

[Rick (Nova Scotia)]

Eric, who is Walter? It was just constructive criticism and unlike you, he took it the right way.

Walter is one of Dunham's Dummies. I much prefer Bubba J. myself

 

[Eric Willoughby]

It wasnt an insult Frank, it's just an observation. You ought to watch Jeff Dunham's shows sometime. They are hilarious.

 

[White Feather]

EEEEEEEOOoooowwwWWW!!! Peanut!!!



If I had to guess from what I can see I would say sometime around the mid 1800's to 1920's give or take a little. I had a house very similar and it was from the late 1700's. Back then they would build the main house and keep adding on as the family grew. The attic looks like it was converted into bedrooms because of the large window additions. That building style withstood the test of time and was common for over two hundred years. As the family grew so did the house. My house still had the old slave quarters, summer kitchen and believe it or not, an old post in the back yard with a hook on it that a 95 year old neighbor told me that his grandfather said it was a whipping post from when the place was a plantation. I found that hard to believe as it looked a lot like a railroad tie. But, then again, you never can tell. I often dug shackels and very old items back then. That was in southern Virginia.

The stone building looks like it may be built with creek stones as opposed to fieldstone. Smooth and round is what you find in creekbeds. In the northeast this is common practice because it is very well insulated for cold weather.

Just my $.02 worth. Hummm, my wife says it's not my month to be right. Oh well, back to whatever it is that I do.

 

[deepskyal]

Hard to say how old that first stone building is. Like Rick said, that stone work was a fad back in the late 1980's. I see no sagging of the roof line and no gutters so I'm thinking it was someones garage or work shop without the windows. The stone was put up over another existing surface...but again, given the lack of sag anywhere...I'd say not real old.

That second house...old style box gutters, nonsymetrical windows, fancy gingerbread design but from the pic, doesn't look like anything missing from age, dormers....I'd take a stab at early/mid 1900's. Again, I don't see sagging in the boxgutter like they would if the seams leaked.
Looks like newer gutters on the addition next to the house and it's sagging.

Is that siding or original wood on the house? Hard to tell from the photo.

Al

 

[Eric Willoughby]

There are alot of houses exactly like the second one in the photo in my area. They range in the dates of 1890 to 1920's. A typical farm/ranch style home.

 

[Ron in Nebr]

My guess is that the building in the first pic isn't stone at all. It looks to me to be what's called a "cordwood" construction made by stacking up peices of wood cut to specific lengths like a firewood stack would be, and mortaring them together. The way the corners are stacked 90 degrees every other layer is the same way firewood is often stacked, and that's what makes me think that this is what this building is. As far as age- it "could" be quite old, but it could be pretty recent as well.

Here's a link to cordwood construction methods that includes a pic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordwood_construction

 

[White Feather]

I should have seen that! Next time I'll look closer. Just laziness on my part I suppose. That and I'm sitting up north waiting for some doctors to decide if we will be allowed to go home before we go broke sitting in a hotel waiting for them to make some sort of decision.

Cordwood construction is a good observation. I just glanced and thought of river stones but now I see the round shapes where river stones would be of irregular exterior shapes. Duh? Slap my wrist and give me a time out. Pop would have just broken another belt across my butt.

A real good way to find out the age of a house is to go to the local tax orfice, ooops, and give them the address and look it up. Pretty accurately dated there. Also gives you the owner to contact for permission to search with your detector.

 

[fishbone3d]

Try this site. You can find some old maps on here. http://www.historicmapworks.com/Browse/North_America/

 

[treasurepirate1]

i have always been baffled why people abandon nice houses like that and no one sells them, so many houses are being built, so instead of wasting materials building a house why can't someone live in it there are some like that where i live i can always see possibility's in them