I grew up in rural VA in the 70s-80s. One bathroom in a house that was built in 1890. I was lucky, as the kid down the (dirt) road did not have a bathroom, rather an out-house. That house had a single cold water faucet in the kitchen. Seems to now have plumbing, evident by the vent pipe in the roof.
It is the Northern Virginia suburbs. The homes I was looking at were mostly built in the 80s-90s because that's roughly the band of growth where I could afford to buy.
Interestingly enough, gas was something of a premium feature. It was generally just used for the water heater and range. The homes with gas were out of my price range.
Even in small towns and villages people had privacy inside their houses, farms etc.
No, they really didn't. Homes were tiny compared to modern American homes. Walls were often thin. Windows were often simply openings in the wall with no glass.
That's exactly part of my point. And it's well documented, though it may not seem obvious to modern Americans who tend to project images of modern homes onto the past.
That was the most interesting part to learn about for me, but they don't have the outhouses, and many of the tours are in units that were retrofitted with indoor plumbing and bathrooms later. Those units look essentially the same as they do now, except they have older furniture and kitchen fittings.
Live in New England. Home I grew up in (built in the late 70s) had one. All but one apartment I've lived in had one -- including this one, which was built in the late 1920s.
My little backwater hometown in Maine raged with ideas like this in the seventies, just before I entered the world. One or two families still live in buildings of similar feel. But most got normal walls with plumbing and lots of TV's once the children outnumbered.
A few of my generation picked up the torch in the nineties, and I happen to know of one off-the-grid dome lived in by a classmate of mine. Though he's married now and no matter how much "Little House" she has read, I find it's a rare wife that wouldn't prefer a conventional stove by year five or so.
So when I see these posts I smile for my own parents' optimism and naivete. And I also feel desperately, overwhelmingly homesick. That garden reads as Eden to my eye. So props to the builder. I hope you make lots of great memories there.
No kidding. Brick foundation, exterior plumbing, knob and tube wiring with 1 electrical outlet and 1 ceiling light bulb per room, zero insulation, single pane glass windows, dirt driveway... all features of my "charming, historically accurate" previous residence.
"In my grandparents' day, it was still possible to construct your own house: you bought a plot of land, hired a concrete mixer to come pour the foundation, bought a lot of 2x4s, and spent a bunch of time hammering & sawing."
It still is. And here in rural Alabama, I have the electrical wiring to show for it.
Yeah, it's swings and roundabouts. We recently modernised my grandmother's terraced house. Positive points:
- high ceilings and windows. Predated Parker-Morris: if you can find one those are absolutely the best. Modern houses are horribly shrunken by comparison, especially when we sell by bedroom count rather than area
- good sound insulation
- solid brick construction (although no cavity wall insulation)
Minus points:
- very leaky of heat
- lead piping embedded in concrete floors
- ancient electrical system (already reworked a few times)
- perilously steep staircase
- bathroom had been retrofitted in the 50s. Yes, the house was built without an inside bathroom, I think it only just had an inside toilet.
> A more modern approach has become the Pre-fab homes.
This isn't just a modern approach. See the Sears kit homes of the early 20th century.
My parents built their ~2800sq ft (not including basement) two story house back in 1976, and it came as a kit on a truck. My dad and uncle, with help from friends, built it, farming out specialist jobs (plumbing, including septic system, etc) as needed.
My parent's house was built like this! The previous owners built a single story basement house into a hill, and then added the main story later in the 60's. It's a cute little ranch now, but sort of weird in that the basement now has all the hook ups needed for a kitchen.
> The Dymaxion House was completed in 1930 after two years of development, and redesigned in 1945. Buckminster Fuller wanted to mass-produce a bathroom and a house.
Yeah the area where I grew up had no older houses. Florida swamp getting filled in with what would now be called McMansions and one 1000’ house designed/built by my dad — no air conditioning either. Definitely a conscious choice lol.
But thanks for the education on older homes and SUVs.
https://goo.gl/maps/dSFy1wx8G5C4UpZ5A
I suppose this is all hip now with off-grid living and van dwelling. Back then it was called poverty.
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