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mrwinkle

Identify the architectural style of my house please.

mrwinkle
11 years ago

I just bought this 100+ year old home for renovation and i am having a tough time identifying the architectural style of it.I do know the previous owner did an addition on the back of it about 60 years ago. Can someone please shed some light on it so i can have a base on how to restore it?

Comments (15)

  • columbusguy1
    11 years ago

    Hmm, identifying styles is often difficult because of changes made over the years. That siding looks like it's 40s era shingling...can you confirm that? How many rooms per floor?
    I think you have had either a porch, or a hood removed over the front entry...if a full porch, the house might be a Foursquare if the room number fits.

    That's looking like a cross-gabled roof to me--what does it do on the back of the house? Can you give a picture of some interior details which might help? What is the trim-simple, ornate...and what of knobs and other hardware?

  • sombreuil_mongrel
    11 years ago

    I'd say Tri-gable ell/farmhouse, from the late Victorian period (1885-1900) You are missing the porch, BTW; it needs to be put back.
    Casey

  • VictoriaElizabeth
    11 years ago

    IâÂÂm with sombreuilâ¦

    ItâÂÂs a beautiful house! Will be lovely when you're finished!
    Good luck!

    Here is a link that might be useful: Our Victorian Project.

  • civ_IV_fan
    11 years ago

    i'd just call it a vernacular victorian. paint, shutters, and reworking the entryway would take this from meh to holy ** that is beautiful

  • renovator8
    11 years ago

    The roof doesn't appear to be resting on the house frame properly. I suspect this house has had a lot of bad things done to it.

  • Ina Plassa_travis
    11 years ago

    I agree - it looks like a Victorian that's been stripped naked and wrapped in siding...the entryway is the only hint of personality left.

  • mrwinkle
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    I would load more photos but dont know how to load multiple. can someone give me a hint?

  • weedyacres
    11 years ago

    For pics, upload them to photobucket, then paste the HTML code they supply for it into your post here.

  • slateberry
    11 years ago

    Empire woodworks might be a good place to start for materials to restore your porch, especially if you can get your hands on an old photo of your house. If you contact families of people who lived there in the past, you might be surprised to get an email from someone with a very helpful photo.

    I'm not affiliated with Empire; I"m just really pleased with their selections. I'm thinking of using one of their spandrels in the high doorway into my kitchen.

    Here is a link that might be useful: Empire woodworks.

  • southerncanuck
    11 years ago

    Looks identical to the house Mom grew up in Western NY minus the ornate front veranda, gingerbread, the gables scalloped shingles, corbels etc. and that home had a turret on the front right corner of the attic. They refered to it as Victorian as well. Your place looks to be stripped to the bare bones when someone tried to modernize it, a pity to be sure. Happened frequently in the 50's when steel siding became practical. All the architectural elements that are worth thousands today ended up in a fire pit, and anything that needed to be meticulously painted was scrapped.

    Renovator8, if you read this any idea why the roof would be offset to the right by a foot or so? The only thing I can think of is that the roof trusses were all made too short, too low, too narrow or the first was not set centered. Perhaps it was a architectural element to offset the roof. Something I'm going to be looking for. Can't swing a cat out here without hitting a century home.

  • mrwinkle
    Original Author
    10 years ago

    Okay, so i did some research and GNAHRGIS Historic Report classified it as a colonial revival???? Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps does prove it had a front porch, however one says it was a 2 story and the other says it was a 1 story. So now i'm excited and yet still confused. can someone give me some links to some photos of homes with a porch that will fit my house so i can get some ideas for renovation? Also can some one explain the offset roof? I will be more than happy to exchange emails and send some pics of the frame in the attic if that would help

    Here is a link that might be useful: House Pics

  • TPopArt
    10 years ago

    A great place to go for old house pictures. I think you can get some ideas here. You can search the archives for homes by the age, style, or location!

    Here is a link that might be useful: Old Houses Archives

  • lizzie_nh
    10 years ago

    Maybe I am misunderstanding which part of the roof you're referring to as offset, so forgive me if this is an off-the-mark too simplistic explanation!

    I don't think the roof is offset - I think the area to the left side (when facing the front, as shown in your first picture) is the side of a two-story dormer which was added on later, with its right side flush with the front of the house. Since the house is now sheathed in "new" siding, you don't see where the addition starts. The roof is centered over what would be the original section (or at least the section which existed prior to the dormer addition, whether it's actually completely original, or not.) That also explains why there is so much more room to the left side of the front windows than to the right side of the front windows. Noting that the roof overhangs the right side somewhat, and imagining how it would overhang the left side in the same way, if there were no dormer, you can see that without the dormer, the side of the house would be considerably more than a foot in from where it is now... it would be shifted by the depth of the dormer (revealed in another photo.) It all matches up.

    I grew up in a Victorian-era house in Maine (of a type commonly referred to in New Hampshire as a "New Englander," although I had never heard that term until I moved to NH, so I don't think it is used much outside of New Hampshire. It is a term used broadly to describe many Victorian-era houses with the front door in the gable end.) It had a similar two-story dormer addition.

    Do you see any evidence of an addition, when you look in the attic? If you follow the roofline back to the back of the house, and look at the rear facade, it is centered over the rear, isn't it? And that side of the house is all in one plane, save for the dormer, correct?

    I think the appearance of the roof not sitting properly is also heightened by the fact that the photo is a little bit crooked, and the roof has a substantial overhang.

    EDIT: Yikes, I only looked at the date of the last post, not the date of the original posts... this OP may be long gone.

    This post was edited by lizzie_nh on Fri, Sep 6, 13 at 8:40

  • old_house_j_i_m
    10 years ago

    The ROOF isn't offset, the GABLE is off center. I wonder if the left side corner of the house was once "clipped" at a 45 degree angle with windows and gingerbread - pretty common on queen anne's. That could explain the off center gable (which would have been centered over the front portion of the facade, sans angled corner.)

    I see tons of houses like this - stripped to nothing on the outside. thankfully youre in the right place to learn a ton about how to restore it back to what it once was. Best of luck

  • lauriekay1958
    9 years ago

    Did you ever find out any info on your house? Mine, in the photo, seems very similar to yours. The porch is not original and we are trying to find photos of old houses like this to copy. We have no old photos of our house so we have to guess, but I'd like to be as accurate as possible.