Colonial House To the left is the parlor; a socially important room. This room has a small wood burning fireplace in the corner with a custom mantle, painted in the same color as the passage woodwork, and slate surround. It is built with a square early colonial firebox using hand-molded bricks. A cast iron fireback […]
Colonial House Look to your left at the wide plank pine flooring in the parlor and passage and you will notice it is continuous from the parlor through the door threshold and into the passage. Now look at the threshold at the dining room door and you will notice a perpendicular floor board in the […]
Colonial House If there are outside corners inside the house, there has to be a way to finish that corner so it is straight, plumb, and smooth. Today, metal corner beads are used with joint compound applied to smooth the transition between the side of the bead and the sheetrock. Colonial plasterers did not have […]
Colonial House With the exception of the front and back doors in the passage, which have brass hardware, all other doors in the house are hung with H-L and H hinges. Box locks are mounted on the surface of the paneled doors and can be locked with a slide bar on the box lock.
Colonial House While the chair rail and a three-piece crown moulding trim the passage, the parlor and dining room are trimmed with wainscoting, chair rail, and extensive four-piece crown moulding. See if you can spot the difference between the crown moulding in the parlor and dining room. Bedchambers seldom had crown moulding, an exception here […]
Colonial House There is a hierarchy to space and woodwork and it is designed to impress. Social status was important. Rooms used for entertaining had greater social importance than room used only by the family. These public rooms, such as the parlor and dining room, where the family status was being displayed, had more elaborate […]
Colonial House. Historical Interior Details Now enter the house, close the door with the large brass box lock, and stand on the heart pine flooring which is throughout the house. You have entered a center passage that extends from the front to the back of the house with the back door under a transom window […]
Colonial House With the exception of the lantern lights on the back porch and the carriage house, you will also notice there appears to be no exterior lighting. A small recessed fixture in the ceiling of the front porch roof illuminates the porch for guests. There is an identical light fixture in the soffit about […]
Colonial House As you approach the front of the house, notice there is a vertical corner board to the right of the front porch door. This corner board is where the original house ended before the space between the house and kitchen was filled in. The seam continues down through the brick on the foundation […]
Colonial Plantation House – Part 6 Historical Exterior Details Our house looks as described above and has roof framing for a true gambrel roof. Modern gambrel roof houses today have the roof line kicked out beyond the exterior vertical walls to make it look like a gambrel roof house. The true gambrel roof was achieved […]
