Please help me date my house

[Sashguy]

My area is windows. I would put these in the late twenties at the earliest. By no means earlier than 1918. The window configuration that you have was common until the mid 40's, but the hardware started taking a lower profile than what you have in the mid 30's. Outside of my expertise would be the art deco plates on the doors and the art deco lamp. These would roll it forward into the 30's. All things summed up, I would guess 1935.

[triguy128]

While not perfect. An easy way to confirm the date my house was the nameplate radiator covers. The accessor office has it 5 years older, but looking at the abstract (Iowa has abstracts, which are cool. The property title and associated docuemnts go back to local indian treaties in the early 1800's). Another can be looking at things like cast iron covers on the old coal chutes. Agreed, that toilet and fixtures aren;t as reliable because in installed before the 20's they have usually been repalced by now. THings made starting in the 20's were a litle mor emoderns.

[PowerMuffin]

Cdawg, we are in Longmont too! Our house was incorrectly dated because the town lost records from before 1914 or so. We went to the Longmont History Museum on S. Main Street and they have the water records that show when water was piped to the house. For our house it was 1908. Then we went to the library and looked at the old address books and saw that our house was not included in the 1904 book, but was included in some later books, so we have determined that the 1908 date is correct. The water guy at the museum is only there a day or two a month. You can see everyone's name that owned your house from the water records. Cool!

We are in the West Side Old Town and love it. Welcome!
Diane

[Don M]

It's funny but while looking at your pictures I thought your house was like many I had seen in Colorado & surprise it' is in Colorado! I noted that one door hardware photo indicates the door once had a larger set of plates. Your phone nitch & door arches are interesting. My parent's 1952 ranch also had a phone nitch in the bedroon wing hallway. Your bathroom fixtures look original to me although the toilet could have been changed. My mother's house in Englewood had a coved ceiling in the living room like yours & her built-in cabinets were similar. Your house is older & larger. Very nice.

[jklare]

To be honest, you could get the exact date by going to your county clerk for an hour or two. Start with the deed with your name on it and follow the references back from deed to deed to the date the original "improvement" was made. With your home being built in the 20s or so, it should only be 4-5 deeds most likely. You current deed may only show back to 1945, but there's a good chance the transaction should list the owner prior to 1945 (who it was purchased from, even if just a subdivision company). A clerk should be able to help you.

If you are really into it and the courthouse has the records, you might be able to go all the way to the original land grant.

[YinzerMama]

My grandma's house was built in 42 and has a phone nook and curved ceiling meets wall sections - not all rooms, oddly - I think just the bedrooms? Her house also has glass knobs with a similar metal part to yours. my house is from the 30s and has glass knobs with a very ornate metal backing/keyhole - it's in two parts - hers has the single plate for knob/keyhole and is less orn ate. Her sink also looks like yours and her tub has a nook with an overhang like yours. i am not sure what to make of the toilet, they don't always have date stamps - I am not sure your stamping is the date. Anyway I might place your house 1940ish.

[housecrazy sarah]

I agree with the 1935-1940-ish age range for your house.

I look at a lot of houses all along the front range and your house REALLY looks typical of late 1930's to mid 1940's. It doesn't seem to have the architecture or foundation of a 'teens or twenties house in Colorado. (that's just my opinion from looking at a lot of old houses - not an expert by any stretch!)

Another avenue you could explore are old phone book records. A former owner of my house used old phone records to go back several decades. Our house has the same issue as yours: the "default" date is 1898 for all houses in this county (Fremont) that date before record-keeping began. But we know that our house dates from at least 1882 because it shows up in hisotrical records and a historic map from that year.

[CivilWarHome]

I looked and I could not find the light shades. I guess they were tossed out with the rest of the P.O's stuff that was in the back room.

It's posts like these that make me want to hang on to all the things we find but will not use, just in case someone pops up with it and would like a spare.

[cdawg414]

Okay, thanks just the same