Carolyn's Blog

These are before and after photos of the office of J & S. Contractors on Williamson Street in the Forty Acres neighborhood of Wilmington, Delaware. Built around 1895 as a livery stable to serve the workers in the nearby row houses and single family homes, it had been used by a plumbing supply company prior to present owner, John W. Piazza renovating it as an office, workshop and storage for his business.

In the next 2 pictures, you can see what has become of the cupola on top of this Forty Acres unique building--what originally was louvered, now is glass which serves as a skylight over the luxurious shower upstairs. The next picture shows arched functioning double doors where once sliding barn-type doors led into the stable.  Mr. Piazza has built up the granite threshold with brick where it had been worn down by horses and wagons. Nice touches are the horse weather vane and the horses cut into the shutters.

Here we see the office interior with its high ceiling and the interior of the arched doors. Then you can see all the shelves full of parts he just may need someday--doorknobs, hinges, and other old house parts.

Our last picture is of a building directly on the other side of the block from the old livery stable. This is the Water Witch Steam Engine Company Number 5, built in 1893, the same time as the stable. It is the oldest firehouse in the city of Wilmington, and is still active.

We had the rare opportunity last week to watch the re-installation of a restored Palladian window at a house museum in Old New Castle, Delaware.  The George Read II House was built around 1800 by the son of a signer of the Declaration of Independence. This window is at the end of the hall on the second floor and has a view of the Delaware River. The property is owned by the Delaware Historical Society.

The work is being done by Dale Frens of Frens & Frens Architects under the Save America's Treasures program. The contractor is J. S. Cornell & Son of Cherry St. in Philadelphia.  In the picture above, you can see the Project Manager, William H. Shainline, who is explaining the work as it is being done.

Here, we see Chris Capaldi and Efrain Matos getting ready to nail metal weatherstripping. This will interlock with another piece of weatherstripping already installed on the jamb. This is nailed every 3 inches, working from left to right, so the metal will not buckle.

To be continued...

Well, there are windows, and then there are windows. This posting is going to be about windows. Sounds simple, right?  First, let's look at a window which has the different parts broken down (courtesy of a display at the George Read II House in New Castle, Delaware).

Starting at the bottom, there is the apron (1).  If you follow the trim to the left and upwards, you will find the window casing (2). Inside of that is the window jamb (3) which abuts the window. The next part is easy--(4)is the glass light or pane.

The cross bar (5) at the top of the lower section of this double hung window is called the meeting rail. Right below that is (6), one of the muntins separating the panes of glass and holding them in place. Right above the apron (1) is the stool (13 --often called a sill by we non-construction types). Sitting on the stool (13) is a vital part of a working double hung window, the pulley (7). Running around the track of the pulley is a cotton sash cord (10), which is tied to the sash weight . And how do we find the sash weight?  It's tucked inside the casing behind a removable piece of wood, the weight pocket (14) next to the jamb that can be pried out to access the weight which might have fallen inside the casing if the cord has broken.

Soon to come: more on windows and notes from the re-installation of the Read House Palladian window, complete with pictures. Thanks to the Delaware Historical Society for this great display!

If you are looking for an update on the history of Wilmington Delaware, and how to do research at the Delaware Historical Society, there is a great series of videos put out by the City of Wilmington. This one talks about the beginnings of the City of Wilmington and brings it up to date as far as general historical information.

 Hope you find this entertaining and are curious about matters concerning Delaware History and historic homes in Delaware and the surrounding area presented by Your Historic Homes Resource, Carolyn Roland

If you are in an historic house and are in a room that pretty obviously was the kitchen, it doesn't take a genius to figure it out.  Our first picture is of an early 18th Century home near West Grove, Pennsylvania. There is an obvious hearth made of brick, and a large wooden beam forming the front of the opening. It is a little hard to see, but on the left of the back corner, we can see metal eyes where the crane that supported pots over the fire was inserted. On the right side, we can see the opening that once led to the beehive bake oven, long since removed, leaving us a story from the past.

 This next fireplace gets a little harder to identify. It is in the basement of another later Pennsylvania 18th C. home, which I have identified as the original kitchen. You can see how the firebricks at the back arch inward, and a brick hearth is at the front, leaving us another story from the past.

In the next picture is  another basement opening, in an addition probably built in the early to mid 19th C.  What do you think this structure is? You can see that the homeowners have made use of this opening by inserting shelves and if you look above, you can see flexible ductwork inserted between the joists which are made of logs. It is a support arch for the hearth of a fireplace above it. There is no firebrick in the back and no brick hearth on the floor, thus, not a fireplace. Another story from the past.

In the last picture, we see a formal fireplace on the main living level of an 18th C. home, complete with raised panels on the fireplace wall, denoting a level of wealth for the owner of this house. The support arch for this fireplace would have looked like the previous picture, giving us another story from the past.

So we can see that upstairs or down, fireplaces and their supports can help tell us the story of a house even when the people who built it left no written records behind.